FACTORY 13
by Familiar47
Summary: This is being remade. Watch out for the second version.
1. The Masked Irken

FACTORY-13

Frontline Assembly Construction Testing Operational Red Yard 13

GUEST STARRING

BlackJack (property of HemeraTak)

The Caterpillar, Irken Nick, Michael White and Frequency (property of ngrey651)

Kronos (property of MilukiSama)

Janie (property of IrkenThorn)

Vexus (property of killzone)

Belthiad and Velrik (property of RaynaHero200)

And about 20 more OCs who shall be named later

Invader Zim is property of Jhonen Vasquez

FACTORY 13 is an Original Character Tournament currently undergoing construction on DeviantArt. It is a product shared by myself, MetalCoffeCup and-if you write IZ Fanfiction then you definitely have been reviewed by the guy: ZimsMostLoyalServant! Come join up once it has been finished!

Xxx

_**Welcome back...I see you are still interested in this tale? Good...I like a loyal follower, one who can think for themselves. Keep it up.**_

_**Now...I'll be brief. It has been a single year since the events of Masked Contritence. Rik and his Star Devil division have built a cozy life for themselves on Ser. Panny has given birth to two children and has stayed at the Caterpillar's side. Kay and Vexus are still together and going at it and now rule Murderworld together. Janie and her husband live with the Star Devils. And Kronos works with his human father on Earth. Life is good...life is happy...**_

_**But then the words on our script say FADE IN and events are put in motion. Do enjoy...**_

_**I know I won't.**_

Xxx

The glow of the molten metal reminded the Irken of hell. He had heard of it before in human texts; a place where the wicked and evil would burn for eternity. There was some wisdom when one pondered what hell was really like. The worst part of hell was not being sent to it, but reliving it over and over again. Every time he awoke here he thought that if he had died and plunged into hell in his sleep he would not have noticed the difference.

He had been crawling through the maze of machinery and dirt for hours ever since he had found himself in hiding. He dared not even stand to glance over the inoperable conveyor belt next to him. His palms, the skin of his forearms and his knees were bloody and stung. He was shaking from head to toe as he reached the end of the row he was in and peeked out. He twisted onto his right side and winced at the pain from his ribs.

He knew not to scream anymore; not here. He saw what happened to anybody who wasn't quiet. He had to be careful and make sure his PAK didn't drag on the ground or hit anything either. If he did...it would come back. How did it even move so fast around this place? It was practically shambling on broken limbs whenever he saw it.

How could something like it even be alive, much less able to do what it did to the last living being the Irken had seen in this forsaken place.

The Irken curled up on his side to rest for a bit. He felt like he was suffocating. He had been taking short, silent breaths that barely gave him a whisper of oxygen for a while. It was worse when he tried to exhale because it was harder to be silent and it made him want to breathe in quickly. But that thing had the ears of a damned Veniran!...actually as far as he was able to tell it didn't have ears.

He was laying in an aisle between the rows of machines now. Some tools were scattered around where they had been dropped perhaps years ago. He kept his eyes wide open and scanning for any movement-

There! At the end of the row he could see the wall of the building. Something dark against the brighter panelling behind it darted through his vision. The unsteady movements made it look like it was limping rather than running, but the speed that it moved at...and how silent...

The single moment propelled the Irken into crawling in the opposite direction of the far factory wall. The thing was on the other side of the massive room from him now; so if he was quiet and careful he could get to the exit and hide somewhere far from its layer. This factory was its home, no doubt about that.

He saw a distant light that broke through the darkness and passed between the towering metal and stone. A single green dot...the exit! He had been crawling for nearly six hours and over the course of several miles and finally he had returned to the exit! He looked around and risked rising a bit. He moved in a half crouch while making sure his feet didn't drag.

_Cl-clang!_

A metal object-possibly a tool had fallen somewhere nearby. The creature was erratic and would do this often; thus alerting the Irken ahead of time and giving him a chance to duck down. But this was much closer than it should have been. Was there some other poor soul who had wandered into the foundry earlier while the creature had been searching for him? If so-

There was a louder crash, and then a scream-female and laced with agony. So there had been another to enter. But this was just all the better for the Irken who kept on moving. The exit had been further than he had thought at first, but the creature would take its time with its victim.

_Thud!_

Something landed on top of him! He opened his mouth and screamed before he could stop himself and shoved it off. It was rather light...but that was because it was a dried husk of an Irken with some rags for clothing to barely conceal the decency of the owner. Its eyes had shrivelled inside of its head, and its teeth were black and covered in some sort of oily substance that was eating away at it before his eyes. He scrambled away from the corpse and pressed himself back against a wall before looking up to see where the body had fallen from.

Above him on a cat walk was a figure. It was outlined by the roaring flames of a furnace that opened at that point to release some materials that had been finished. The figure was dangerously skinny, so much that even from here he could see its skeletal frame. Its arms were twig thin and ended in gnarled, twisted fingers that twitched randomly. Its head was encased in something metallic that reflected light...

The Irken screamed as the creature stepped off and landed silently on its feet. Then it was shambling towards him as he scrambled to his feet and began to run. The thing was fast despite how clumsy its movements were. He could practically feel its breath on the back of his neck at some points. The scent stung his senses so badly that he felt vomit pool at the back of his throat. He gagged and spilt his guts out while stumbling a bit.

Just as he straightened up the thing let out a muffled growl, and then he felt burning agony from his back. He screamed and tumbled, rolling a bit and ending up on his back. He whimpered pitifully and looked up at the thing, which was slowly advancing on him as he tried to crawl away from it. In the lights of nearby flames that had chosen that moment to turn on her had a full view of the thing that had taken two souls before him this day-two minimum at least; it could have killed more who had wandered in.

A sort of helmet had been built around its head. Across its lower face was a metal piece drilled into place that would keep its lower jaw firmly in place against its upper jaw. Two more pieces had been fitted around the top, sides and back of its head and covered where an Irken's antennae would have been. Its eyes were covered by a set of goggles which left little of the flesh of its face visible...

It was the only green to be found on the disgusting parody of an Irken. The rest of the body was charred black, and pieces of it cracked and chipped away with each movement it made. He could hear loud, filtered breathing coming from the creature, which chose that moment to shamble off into the darkness with an eager grunt.

For a moment the Irken was relieved-if not embarrassed when he noticed that the material of his pants was now clinging to his thighs after he had wet himself. He ignored the stench and resumed his course for the exit. He didn't know why it had chosen to leave him right after it had wounded him but now was his chance to get out!

He was pounding through the collection of forges, molds, furnaces, and the mechanical limbs snatching up and depositing components that would be made into more complex inventions as they went. He heard the distant rasping of the creature and assumed that it was coming back for him! Perhaps it simply intended to kill him a different way; perhaps by bludgeoning him to death with a pipe or something. He wouldn't stay to find out!

He reached the door and swung it open. A deafening shriek came from behind and the Irken turned in time while blocking the light from his eyes to see that the creature was scrambling away from the sun light and into the darkness.

He laughed. "Yeah that's right! Run! Run like a-" Then something blocked out the darkness behind him. He slowly turned and came face to face with a figure a little taller than his average height. It was an Irken, but not nearly as hideous as the thing that had been stalking him. Judging from the slight curve to its body the figure was female. It wore a coat that reached past its knees yet fit snugly to its upper body.

Its antennae sloped down rather than curling, and reached just past its shoulders. The female Irken wore a mask consisting of a black and red piece covering her lower face and a black visor that fit itself to the sides of her head and covered her eyes.

"_If it was afraid of the light, it would have starved long ago._" She said with a voice that was somehow filtered through the tiny face mask, and at that moment the frightened Irken before her noticed that he had lost the feeling in his arms...

And that she held in one hand a weapon, a large knife with two parallel blades that curved to form a singular point. It was stained with Irken blood. The Irken looked down at his arm...and saw that it was sitting on the floor near him. His left arm was still attached, but only barely by flesh and muscles. A moment later all of the pain caught up to him as blood poured out of each stump. His left arm fell off as the tissue snapped.

The Irken collapsed on his back as his screams died down into whimpers and tears. He looked up at the masked Irken woman above him. "W-why? What did I ever do to you?"

The Irken slowly pulled back one sleeve, revealing a device with a single screen built on it attached to her forearm. The partially dismembered Irken had one on his left arm before it had snapped off. A picture of himself appeared on the woman's wrist mounted device. "_You were chosen to be the next to die, that's what._"

Then she reared back her arm. "_There are worse things than monsters off the edge of the map. You'd know that if you bothered to prepare._"

Then she used her amazing strength to sliced off his head with a single stroke of her blade. The metal cut through flesh, muscles, tendons, bones...and then even cut deep into the floor underneath the Irken. She jerked her knife free and kicked the head away. It bounced off of a machine and landed on a conveyor belt which carried it to a furnace. As the head slowly cooked and the brain within bubbled out the creature from earlier snatched it up from behind the cover of the conveyor belt and carried it off.

Underneath the mask the Irken smirked. "_Dinner's served._"

She stepped back out through the door and slammed it shut...and added a lock so nobody else would try and hide in there. She had spent hours waiting for the moron to stumble out. While she could have killed the creature that called the foundry its home she preferred to avoid unnecessary strain on her energy which could be better used for killing the ones she was assigned to.

As she wiped the blood clean from the knife a shape appeared in the air above her. It started out as a shimmer which became a disc shaped device that floated and let out a low humming noise as it lowered itself down to her level. She looked up at it and sighed as she pulled back her sleeve again. The disc extended a small cable that attached to the device on her wrist.

"**Congratulations, you have won this month's session. You shall be given quarters until the next one begins."**

"If I'm going to be stuck doing this, at least have the decency to send people who can actually fight," the masked Irken said.

"**...very well then, we have several candidates already under observation. You shall not be disappointed." **The drone circled around her. **"But...you shall be retrieving them yourself."**

"You don't think I won't cut and run once I'm out of here?" The masked Irken demanded.

"**We know you won't be able to, we took precautions when we placed you in here. You won't notice it yet, but there will be a sudden thirst for a particular drug mass produced here."**

"You...got me addicted to something?"

"**And the air within the force field is laced with it...or will be so long as we desire it. Now under normal conditions you could work your way out of your addiction. But with constant amounts of the drug around you, you may find it difficult to go anywhere without gong cold turkey completely. And that won't be healthy at all; by the time you would be able to recover we'd have you back in our grasp and pumped full of the drug."**

"...I florpin' hate you all."

"**We said the position of Top Dog around here is prestigious...not luxurious. Your ship will be arriving now. Good luck to you."**

The drone vanished, and a small ship shot out from over the nearby roof tops. It activated a beam that lifted the Irken off of her feet and into the bowels of the small shuttle.

She was used to it all...

She had to be, after all if she couldn't figure out a way around her situation then she'd be doing this twelve times a year for the rest of her long life.

That was one rule of FACTORY-13:

The only way you leave the tournament is if you die.

Xxx

**(Indestructible is property of Disturbed)**

**The camera shows an aerial view of a large city...but upon closer view it is shown to be a factory city. Many structures are crumbling or are on fire. In the background explosions bloom along the length of a tower which immediately collapses in on itself.**

**The camera then travels low along the ground and passes between a set of boot clad feet. Upon zooming it out it shows Rikalo standing in the center of a wide street surrounded by rubble and bodies of varying aliens.**

**Suddenly a nearby wall crumbles, and a large shape charges out through the dust. Rik turns and draws both of his guns while rushing to meet it. It opens its maw, four large yellow eyes bloodshot with red veins glare at him as it lunges. Rik darts to the left and hops onto a pile of rubble. He scales it as the beast changes course and leaps off just as it crashed into and goes right through the rubble. Rik lands on its back as it lands and slides across the ground on top of it. He grabs onto one of the horns on top of its head and hangs on as it throws itself back and forth in an effort to shake him off. It tries to roll onto its back, but Rik scrambles around so he is on its stomach now.**

**The beast, a large green creature with scaled flesh and a lower jaw that splits into two sections as it hisses tries to roll onto its front. But Rik plants one foot between its eyes and aims his guns down at it. Its eyes widen, and the viewer can see a reflection of Rik in the yellow globes just before he fires. The screen cuts to black, and the music slowly begins to play as the title is shown.**

**FACTORY-13**

_Another mission_

_The powers have called me away_

_Another time to carry the colours again_

_My motivation_

_The oath I've sworn to defend_

_To win the honour of coming back home again!_

**The masked Irken lands near Rik as he hops off of the dead beast. Rik raised his gun and fires at the Masked Irken, who raises one arm and deflects the bolts with a sort of green tinged energy shield that appears ahead of her as she charged towards him. Her other hand whips out her double bladed knife as she leaps into the air.**

_No explanation will matter after we begin_

_Unlock the dark destroyer that's buried within_

**The Irken's blade is deflected by De Rien, who appears next to Rik with a new battle staff in hand. She strikes the Masked Irken in the side and sends her sprawling to the ground. As the two face her, she suddenly vanishes. They both go back to back with their weapons drawn. Suddenly a nearby doorway bursts into flames before exploding outwards. They dive either way to avoid it.**

_My true vocation_

_And now my unfortunate friend_

_You will discover a war you're unable to win!_

**The monster from the beginning charges out, arms waving erratically as it lunges at De. But then it is punched in the face by a metal fist. BlackJack smirks as her punch knocks the monster on its back and then helps De Rien to her feet.**

**Then the three face the Masked Irken as she reappears nearby on top of the dead monster Rik shot. At first they look ready to fight, but then a series of creatures crawl up and over the corpse. They are all of varying size, but each has the features of Irkens. They snarl and hiss at the group while the Masked Irken calmly vanishes into their midst.**

_I'll have you know_

_That I've become_

**The monsters all lunge forward as one.**

_Indestructible_

_Determination that is incorruptible_

_From the other side_

_A terror to behold_

_Annihilation will be unavoidable_

**Camera cuts to a view of Shadow standing on a cat walk over a void with several creatures closing in on him. More are crawling up the walls around him. He simply smirks, and then tendrils of black shoot out from under his coat and begin to impale the monstrosities around him.**

_Every broken enemy will know_

_That heir opponent had to be invincible!_

**Carlos grins evilly as he charges into a mass of fighters and monsters with his hands turning into claws. He comes out the other side with the head of a Veniran fighter clasped in one hand and slams his victim clean through a wall. Then he faces the crowd and rears his head back before unleashing a stream of molten metal that turns into a series of spikes and rips through the wave of attackers.**

_Take a last look around while you're alive_

_I'm an indestructible Master of War!_

**Rik, Shadow and the Masked Irken all leap into the air at the same time and collide in a flash of light.**

**The camera cuts to black and shows the title fading in again**

**FACTORY 13**

Xxx

End of the Prologue


	2. The Assassin

FACTORY 13

Invader Zim is property of Jhonen Vasquez

Seeing as ngrey651's Frequency will be involved once more I also don't own Lilo & Stitch either

Nor do I own any of the characters, ideas and/or OCs not of my own making. And I extend my thanks to the authors who have offered their characters to assist in building this.

For this chapter we shall be introduced to our first six new guests...

**Nova (property of runepelt)**

**Tayon 'Tay' (property of my good friend HemeraTak)**

**Wiyn (property of another good friend and contributor of mine, ngrey651)**

**Thorn (property of my friend Thorn-Irken)**

**Leka (property of another friend, Invader-Leka)**

**Sicarious (Property of InvaderJrek)**

I extend my thanks to you all for submitting these characters. If there is anybody here who would like to submit an OC, I take plenty at the moment. There are 14 spaces open.

Oh and for the next little while it'll be more light hearted and action packed rather than scary and horrific.

Let the first chapter begin!

Xxx

**Welcome to the Red Yard 13 database.**

**Accessing encrypted files...**

**Accessing folder POTENTIALS...**

**Access granted, welcome Director.**

**Accessing file NOVA**

**Accessing file TAYON**

**Accessing file WIYN**

**Accessing file THORN**

**Accessing file LEKA**

**Accessing file SICARIOUS**

**Displaying contents...**

**Target coordinates acquired.**

**Acquisition commencing, deploying operative VESIRA.**

Xxx

**Planter Splor, Operations Base of Star Devil division/Housing of civilian families**

**Blue Irken Imperial Space**

**1 year after confrontation with Shadow**

People still looked at Rine as if he was the dirt beneath their feet. Only those from the Holy Irken Empire would show him respect, and even then he saw the disgust in their eyes. He didn't blame them...he was disgusted that the only reason he existed was because his mother had been raped. The young Irken was never directly confronted; perhaps because people feared that his mother had taught him everything she knew ranging from using guns to breaking bones with every blow.

Perhaps he was paranoid, but he couldn't help but suspect that anybody who knew the full story of his birth thought of him as nothing but an inconvenience for an otherwise exceptional soldier. Others may have thought he was merely a reminded of a disgusting pig of an Admiral. But one person admitted after talking to him for several weeks that she had thought very badly of Rine until recently...

This Irken was named Leka, and she was one of the few civilians who had clearance into the military sector of the Star Devil facility. She was a little taller than Rine himself, making her the same height as his mother. She had the oddest eye colour: purple...with blue pupils that were clearly visible instead of being only a shade or two different from the rest of the eye. She bore black 'tear trail' marks under her eyes like De Rien, and had an X shaped patch of dark skin that extended from both eyes and crossed at her forehead.

She was also very open when it came to expressing herself...

"Who the hell do you think you are, bub?" She growled at the soldier, her teeth set in a vicious snarl. The unfortunate soldier staggered as he moved back; his helmet hid what Rine guessed was a startled and frightened face. The body armour the Irken wore did nothing to hide the shaking that was affecting him from head to toe.

"Do you think you can walk in here and start talking about me like that? Huh?" She shoved him backwards into a wall.

"Hey-hey now!" The soldier regained some of his courage and tried to stand tall. "No fighting inside of the-"

"Fuck the damn rules! Talk to me like you're not some robot yah prick!" Leka also had taken to many curse words that were brought into the galaxy at large along with the full might of humanity's small armada and massive reserve armies.

"Leka!" Rine looped his arms around her waist and lifted her off her feet-she was surprisingly light. "Come on now, this is smeet attitude."

"You heard what he said!" Leka whined as she was carried away. "He made fun of my antennae rings!" The small golden rings were attached to the tips of the leku, and were part of a slowly growing fashion trend.

But Rine ignored her protests and carried her under one arm out of the cafeteria past several other Star Devil troopers who stared at the sight. Leka kicked and whined like a child the whole way until he set her on her feet on the lawn in the main yard of Camp Nova. In the morning it was crowded with dozens of the human and Irken soldiers which made up the bulk of the Star Devil division marching and warming up. Now it was early in the afternoon, and the sun was just beginning to descend towards the east a bit. The yard was empty except for the odd passing individual or small group.

"Leka," Rine sighed as he set his hands on her shoulders. "Can you try not to kill everybody who says something about you?"

"I wasn't gonna kill him...just beat him badly," Leka replied.

Rine was used to this 'casually violent' style that Leka had to her. She had little regard for the consequences of her actions, and in fact was still smiling after she got out of a fight. Her confidence made him think of his uncle, Hellion...

"You know, when I heard that there had been another argument in the mess hall I just knew it was you," A new voice attracted their attention. Dibbun 'Dib' Membrane, the de facto leader of the Terran Federation and director of its Interstellar Affairs had cleaned up since they first met him. Though his hair was beginning to turn a little grey here and there he was cleanly shaven and had a better complexion than before.

He wore a long black coat instead of the trademark white human scientists favoured. He also had more colour than when they had met him a year ago. He was gladly spending more time out of his office and labs ever since his reunion with his sister Gaz a year ago. But he didn't need looks to let people know that he was the leader of humanity in the war against Tallest Shadow...

Or at least he would be when the war restarted. This past year had been the longest armistice between the three ruling Irken factions to date. Until then Dib was routing as many special forces units from Earth and its few colony worlds to Splor to reinforce the Star Devils. Because of this they needed to build over two dozen separate compounds on the northern continent to accommodate them all.

"It wasn't anything bad, sir," Rine assured Dib.

"Only because you were within ten feet of her when it happened," Dib replied without missing a beat.

Rine had respect for Dib; this man had known what it felt like to have people stare holes through the back of your head and whisper about you. And yet here he was after it all with a smile on his face and a hand held out to shake your own.

"Aw come on Membrane, that guy was making fun of my-"

"So was the former chef, the armory guards, the former transport pilot and Drill Sergeant Hoffman." Dib nodded. "Leka, if you were in the military you'd have been locked in the detention center so many times now and possibly remove from the camp entirely."

"What for?"

"Protection," Dib shrugged. "Gotta keep people safe."

"I don't need protection from schmucks like those guys!"

"I didn't say the protection was for _you._" Dib chuckled. He had his hands on his hips and his head tilted back in a way similar to his father's maniacal laughter attacks...only less maniacal. "Now come on, I was looking for you both before I heard of the accident anyways. I need you over in the Command Center."

"What's gone wrong?" Rine asked while adopting a more serious tone and stance as he and Leka followed the human.

"I can't say for sure and even if I could I wouldn't say it in the open." Dib replied and then stayed silent until they reached the central structure at the center of Camp Nova. It was seven stories high and surrounded by guards at all times. After flashing his ID card to the guards at the gate Dib and his two followers were admitted.

"Can you say now?" Leka asked as they stepped into the lobby.

"I already told you that I don't know for sure Leka." Dib was being as patient as possible with her.

She stared at the back of his head while noting the odd size of it in proportion to the rest of his body. As they stepped into an elevator she asked him, "...can you say now?"

"_Gah!_"

Xxx

The top floor was one big room filled with nearly two hundred people ranging from Irkens and humans to the odd Veniran or two. When Dib stepped in many parted to make a path for him to his station at the very center of the room. Dib sat down and rotated his chair to face Rine and Leka. "Alright, I'm lowering the cone."

"What's the cone?" Rine asked before Dib tapped a button on his arm rest. A sort of glass cone slid out of the ceiling to surround Rine. Two more matching ones covered Leka and Dib.

The latter said. "The cone is designed so that nobody else can hear us or the transmission. We call it the Cone of Silence."

"_What?_"

"_Dib, I can't hear you!_"

"I said it's the Cone of Silence!"

"_Lemme outta here!_"

"_Wait, I can read lips a bit..the...bone of appliance?_"

"No, the Cone of Silence! Silence!"

"_Cone of Science?_"

"SILENCE! SILENCE!"

"_Sheesh, if you want me to be quiet then just say so!_"

"What was that?"

"_There's no need to be so snappy, sir!" _Rine was glaring at Dib.

"_I want out of this thing!_" Leka banged her fists on the inside of her cone. "_Let! Me! Out!_"

"_I think Leka wants out, Dib!_" Rine shouted.

"This is ridiculous-"

"_Ooooouuuut!_" Rine cupped his hands to his mouth. _"This cone appliance or whatever you called it isn't working, Dib!"_

"No, it's the Cone of-" Dib sighed and tapped the arm rest of his chair. The cones retracted. "Oh forget it, we'll just play the damn transmission. We're in the Ops Center anyways; it's safe as can be."

"Seriously Membrane, what was the point of those cones?" Leka asked.

"...Leka, if you weren't the head of Public Affairs I would toss you out now," Dib sighed while pinching the bridge of his nose. "We have a transmission from Smeetery Station Alpha coming in so just listen up."

"Why would Zim send us a call?" Rine asked with a frown.

Rine held Zim accountable for his mother's failure to assassinate Tallest Red so long ago, and for her imprisonment. To a lesser extent he also blamed Zim for what happened to his mother in Painomania where she had been locked up.

But now here he was helping Envon to raise the population of his empire again. Within the last year thanks to Zim and the contributions from his Aunt Paneece's supposed 'temporary mate' The Caterpillar the population of the Blue Empire was no longer dropping as fast as it had been. Despite how much Zim was hated...there was always a convenient reason to _not_ kill him no matter how much one might wish to.

"It's not Zim who sent it," Dib replied. "It's from my sister."

In the instance the image of Gazlene Membrane appeared. She no longer wore the body armour and battle suit that she had been outfitted with decades ago. Her purple hair had been cut shorter but maintained its usual shape. She appeared to be in her early twenties instead of her mid fifties like Dib thanks to a Chrono-Stasis beam she had been held in by Zim during her recovery. Now she wore more casual clothes: a pair of knee high black boots that fit her legs nicely, dark purple tights, a black denim skirt over the tights, a black tank top, and a grey long sleeved shirt under that to mimic her old style. She had the old skull necklace that had been left behind on Earth after Zim had taken her-Dib had saved it for many years.

"Finally, you picked up." She said.

"We came as soon as I found them Gaz," Dib replied. "What's wrong?"

"...It's Zim and Volt," Gaz's usual proud and stoic demeanor began to collapse as she squirmed. She was uncomfortable and anxious; most likely she wanted to be solving the problem herself instead of asking for help. "They're gone."

"Gone? You mean abducted?" Dib asked.

"I don't know, genius," She opened one amber eye and glared at Dib. "But they're gone and there was no record of a shuttle leaving this station. They were here yesterday and...we've been looking from top to bottom on this station. Volt is a workaholic, he'd never ditch his work station for so long. And Zim is always laughing evilly every time a smeet is made and staying up actually _reading_ to them while they're in their pods."

"That sounds unlike the Zim I know."

"Its stories about his _victory_ at Earth," Gaz added.

"Ohhhhh...that son of a b-"

"And when we tried to call Envon for assistance our transmissions were blocked. A messenger ship dropped by an hour ago and it turns out that most of the comm. stations in the Blue Empire are down. I only had this set up because a few mobile transmitters were set up between here and you guys."

"This isn't good...what could take down our entire communication network?" Rine asked.

"Whatever it is, it just struck at Splor's moons." Gaz replied. "We tried contacting them there first to see if they could boost our signal and instead we found a distress beacon active and a record log showing that the sensor towers on the moon were being knocked out. So whatever has been causing it is likely on your door step."

"Damn it...why didn't we get the distress...signal..." Dib trailed off. "Damn..."

Rine realized what Dib was thinking. "They're already here and jamming us!"

As if those words were a signal the whole building shook. Alarms began to wail, and the operators all around rushed to their stations to contact the fighter squadrons and barracks that should be mobilizing. Dib cut the connection with his sister and activated the cameras located on the roof. Six images were projected around his work station showing different angles...until a single fighter shot into view and blasted two of them.

"Damn...air raid!" Rine got out of his seat. "Dib, contact the Defence Force and get our anti air array up! Leka come with me!"

"All communications are down, I can't reach the air base!" Dib shouted. "They probably won't realize what's happening until they get hit. For all we know they're all dead."

"Try anyways! I'll figure out a way to get our Transmitter working again," Rine stated as he produced his pistol from the belt he wore. It was a custom made Vortian model his mother favoured. He pulled out a second, standard issue gun and passed it to Leka. "Do you know how to-"

"What Irken doesn't?" Leka asked rhetorically as she activated the charge and heard the gun hum as it warmed up. "Lead on-"

The building shook again, and a hole was blasted through the eastern wall of the Ops Center. Rubble was sent flying clear across the room and crushed some people against the wall or floor. Dib ducked as some shrapnel flew past him. "God damn it! Rine make it snappy before they blow us to pieces!"

"How the hell did they even get this close without us noticing?" Rine demanded.

"It doesn't matter! Right now we have to focus on just fighting them back!" Dib snapped. "Now go! That's an order!"

As the two Irkens rushed back to the elevators he looked to the hole in the Ops Center. "He's right though...how the hell did they sneak this far in and blast us with our backs turned?"

Xxx

Outside the situation was deteriorating just as quickly as it had inside. Soldiers were attempting to repel the enemy fighters with what they had, but after initially managing to shoot down two of the attackers the rest of what looked like a squad of Shadow Fighters adapted to come at the manned turrets when they were occupied with other fighters. As they exchanged fire with the defenders several assault shuttles were landing inside or around Camp Nova and spilling out soldiers...

"Shadow Irkens..." One blue soldier whispered as he peered through the scope of his rifle and watched as scores of black armoured Irkens stormed the camp gates. More were already inside and slaughtering any in their path. As they went in deeper though they found organized resistance. Though this attack had caught Camp Nova off guard the members of the Star Devils weren't about to be walked all over.

Rine and Leka stepped out into a chaotic scene. Blue Soldiers and humans lay dead on the ground, gunned down from the air. Others were still firing up in an effort to protect the Command Center. The wall around the command center had held for now, but had several holes blown into it by heavy weapons. Wounded had been moved within the wall to protect them while a large group of defenders held back squadrons of Shadow Irkens which slowly were forced to retreat.

Rine stopped by a small collection of soldiers seeking shelter by the perimeter wall. One of them had a bulky field radio. He slid the last few feet and stopped next to them. "Do you have anything on that?"

"Negative, it's being jammed!" The soldier replied. "If I had to guess it'd be short ranged jammers, probably inside the camp now."

"Weren't they jamming us already?"

"Yeah, but I think their long range jammer moved off to cover other areas after their mobile ones were set up. That way they could disable other bases in the area without anybody knowing and make sure we can't call for help." The soldier explained. "If you could knock them out I could contact the repair facility south of here, they're off the grid and last I heard they have a squad of fighters waiting to be launched."

"I'll handle it!" Rine nodded. "Leka, come with me!"

"Point and I'll clobber it," Leka smirked and followed Rine out into Camp Nova.

Most of the fighting was scattered now as the few armed units of Blue Irken and human soldiers engaged the Shadow Irkens storming the barracks and armoury. Rine and Leka kept low and avoided larger firefights.

The carnage was spread to over a third of the camp, and only because all of the soldiers were required to keep a weapon within reach even in their barracks. Though mostly armed with pistols the members of the Star Devil division had fought off waves of Shadow Irkens and acquired weapons from the fallen. Some teams made for the armoury...few made it there alive. But on the bright side when Rine glanced in the direction of the armoury he saw smoke and heard heavy gun fire...meaning the guards stationed there were alive and still fighting.

"Rine look out!" Leka shouted.

Rine glanced ahead just before a Shadow Irken stepped around a corner. The Irken was average enough, only he wore pitch black battle armour which was much thinner than the models worn by other Irken factions. Plates of protective armour covered his chest, back, shoulders, forearms, outer thighs and knees. His boots also had components of armour attached to them. A pair of startled eyes could barely be seen behind a red tinted visor.

The Shadow Irken was fiddling with his rifle when he had stumbled upon the two. He tossed the weapon aside-apparently it was unusable at the moment and snatched a pistol from his belt. But Rine's gun came up and bucked once in his hands as he squeezed the trigger. The first shot hit the visor and shattered it...a lucky shot. The Irken's brain was boiled and burst in a split second. Grey matter poured out through the breach as the dead Irken collapsed.

"Good shot," Leka breathed while lowering her own weapon.

"Thanks...let's not let it get to our heads though. We only got lucky," Rine reminded her. "We have to find that jammer before we end up dealing with a full invasion force." They kept on going and knelt in a narrow alley. Up ahead a single vehicle passed by: a Shadow marked APC that was firing its guns ahead at an unseen target.

"Looks clear," Leka whispered and moved to the mouth of the alley. She and Rine glanced around once and then knelt to catch their breath.

"How the hell are we supposed to find the jammers out here? It's a damn war already!" Leka demanded.

"I know the design used by the Shadow Empire, it'll be big enough that two Irkens will have to carry it. And to increase the range of it they'd need an elevated position. So we need a squad sized target in a remote area that could be easily defended with such a small force..." Rine paused as they reached the main western road leading from the Command Center to the west gate. "...like that one there." He pointed to several shapes on top of a nearby structure: storage Warehouse 4-B! The southwestern quarter of Camp Nova was for storage.

That section was further divided into four groups starting at Section A and going counter clockwise until it reached Section D on the northeastern quarter of that area. It would be a good place to lay low and have a high position for a jammer...

The only problem was getting there across the western road. No doubt they had a sniper with them, so how...

Rine spotted a dead Shadow soldier lying a few feet away. He crawled out from the cover provided by the narrow alley he and Leka were in. He searched the soldier and found a single plasma rifle. He unfolded it and flipped the scope out of the top of the body. "Perfect."

"Look out!" Leka tackled Rine right before a single projectile shot through where he had been. Leka had used her PAK legs to propel her into him fast enough to push him to safety and avoid a fatal wound of her own. On the roof the Shadow Irken swore and ejected the spent cartridge from the human made sniper rifle. Most energy based sniper rifles were much bigger and harder to use, and were prone to malfunction or break down...so Shadow simply had his army copy a human design for a projectile model and issued that.

He began to move the next cartridge into the chamber when Rine finally got a lock after getting up into a crouched position. His shot tore through the Irken's visor and then into his left eye before dissipating on the inside of his helmet. The Irken buckled and fell forwards over the edge of the roof. The helmet had fused to its head within the time it took for the corpse to hit the ground.

"One down!" Rine grunted. "Leka, I see a ladder on the north east corner. Go and climb up, I'll draw their fire."

"You got it!" Leka dashed across the road and dove into the shadow of the building just as another Shadow Irken came to the edge of the roof. He fired at Rine, who took cover behind a crashed transport that had most likely been hit during the initial bombardments. It had crashed into the southern side of the mess hall and ended up at an angle that allowed Rine to crouch behind it and remain hidden from the warehouses of Section D.

The Irken was joined by another member of the nine men squad and managed to keep Rine pinned with alternating patterns of laser fire. The rest were gathered around a cylinder shaped device mounted on three legs like a tripod. Two of the six were operating the device while the other four were crouched and exchanging in light conversation.

If Rine had followed Leka he would have seen a smirk that was rather uncharacteristic of her grace her lips. She vaulted over the edge of the roof and charged right for the group. One of the relaxing soldiers spotted her and opened his mouth...

If he had kept his helmet on then it would have protected him from the first shot Leka fired. His brains burst out the back of his head and splattered his three companions. The second soldier grabbed his rifle and began to turn only for four more shots to blast through his armour. The first two weakened it, the next two tore through the cardiac sector of his Squeedlyspooch.

Then Leka was upon the other two. The third soldier tried to fire his rifle at point blank range ,but Leka had the barrel of his rifle and turned his aim onto the fourth soldier. The shots tore through him thanks to the close proximity and the amount of gun fire. Then Leka grabbed the elbow of the arm holding the gun.

SNAP!

The Irken screamed as his forearm bent at the middle. The distal (further from center of body) half was hanging limply while white bone stuck out of the stump. Leka held the soldier's rifle now and swung the butt of the weapon around. The blow caused his brain to bounce against the inside of his skull and cause bruising on the organ. This was simply called a concussion...a very bad one actually. The Irken collapsed, and the two by the machine were taking up position between Leka and the jammer.

She turned the rifle on them and set it to automatic fire. The lasers tore through the two soldiers after just one of them got a shot off that flew past Leka's head. They were ripped to pieces along with the jammer behind them. Then the final two soldiers by the edge took notice of the slaughter that befell their comrades. They fired at Leka, but she had reached the edge of the roof by the time they had turned and vaulted back over the edge and onto the ladder when they fired.

Rine took this chance to leap from cover and popped several shots off at the two marksmen. One shot clipped the Irken on the right and made him stumble away from the edge while the second spun to fire back at Rine. Leka took this chance to haul herself back up and rest the barrel of her rifle on the edge of the roof. She lined up a shot and fired twice into the guard Rine had clipped while he tried to remove the melting shoulder armour Rine had hit. The Irken collapsed, and then the final member of the Jamming team joined him.

Leka climbed back down and met with Rine on the road rather than letting him come up to the roof to meet her...she didn't want him to see what she had done to the soldiers there and question her.

"How many more were there?" He asked.

"Oh there were just two more manning the jammer," Leka replied innocently and lying through her teeth so that he wouldn't ask her any stupid questions. "Can we use our radios now?"

"Let's see," Rine tapped a small device that was secured to the side of his head by an adhesive surface. This activated his PAK radio. "Dib, can you hear me?"

"_Yeah, and we just managed to call the Repair Facility. The Chief Mechanic won't be too happy when he hears that we need the squad he just fixed off the ground immediately._"

"Well you're the negotiator for a reason, so I'll leave it to you." Rine nodded. "We're on our way back now. Are there any other jammer units we should worry about?"

"_Not as far as we can tell-wait, enemy forces just breached our perimeter!" _Dib's voice was lost in a roar of gun fire in the background before the link was terminated.

"Man, these Shadow Irkens work fast!" Rine was off like a bat out of hell instantly. "Come on, we have to save Dib!"

Xxx

Dib and the few remaining security guards were fighting against a small team of Shadow Irkens. Their armour was stronger and reinforced by a sort of shield barrier which had multiple projectors so that when one shield fell two more that it overlapped would be there to take most of the punishment. Dib fired his rifle again and managed to bring down one of the soldiers as he tried to dash into the collection of desks for cover. It took six accurate shots, and the soldier had been running in a straight line.

"Is that all you've got?" Dib taunted them. "My sister was better at this when she was ten!"

Slowly the fight wore on as Dib's fellow soldiers were gunned down; however the Shadow Irkens were reduced to just two by the time Dib witnessed the final guard fall to a hail of plasma fire. The human remained crouched behind the semi circular desk he worked at in the middle of the Ops Center as the two Shadow Irkens began to split up and advance towards him from different angles.

Unfortunately for them Dib kept surprised in the workplace such as a single grenade which he tossed overhand and landed near the Irken approaching from the right. He looked down and then tried to dive into the desk aisle next to him. The grenade exploded just as his feet left the ground and shredded through his legs while propelling him through the air. He shrieked as he landed; blinded and crippled by the agony he was enduring now. His legs were reduced to flapping masses of pulp with shards of bone visible here and there amongst the eviscerated green skin and strands of torn muscles.

The second Irken was caught off guard, and Dib was able to stand and fire three clean bursts into him that ripped through his upper body and arms. He collapsed while the other Irken kept on groaning and screaming in clear pain. Dib did not savour the idea of letting him suffer and quickly put him out of his misery with four more shots from the safety of his desk. As the Irken went limp Dib let out a sigh of relief. "That'll show you not to come barging into my office during work hours."

His eyes wandered over the bodies of dead soldiers. "...or go and murder my people." The second statement had more emotion to it as Dib privately mourned the deaths.

"Don't worry human, you will join them soon." Dib had his rifle up again and locked n the source of the voice only to see empty air. "It isn't that easy to spot me...Dibbun Membrane."

Then a desk was lifted up and slammed into Dib. He dropped his rifle and landed on his back with the heavy metal furniture on top of his waist. He groaned in pain and tried to move it, but it was quite heavy...the very point of which was so that it couldn't be thrown at all! This newcomer was strong.

Or more specifically...all _three_ of them were strong. They seemed to appear from thin air: two planet jackers with green eyes and a single Irken...

The Irken was beautiful, and there was no denying this. She had silver eyes and a slim form that was made from years of training and a healthy diet. She was shorter than the Planet Jackers, barely reaching their chests. The outfit she wore was like a black and silver version of an Invader uniform, and her boots had silver metallic tips built into them. Her antennae tips were aimed forward instead of backwards. They dipped further forward as she placed one foot on the edge of the desk and leaned down with a smirk.

"Nice to meet the infamous leader of the human race," She whispered, every word intentionally made to sound husky and alluring to Dib.

"Hold it!" Dib heard Rine shout after the doors to the staircase burst open. He saw Rine and Leka standing with rifles levelled at the trio. "Don't you dare move!"

"...Rine, son of Skullene." The male Planet Jacker, Tal'vo frowned. "I have awaited this day for a year."

"You know this guy?" Leka asked Rine.

"Unfortunately yes...and he swore vengeance on me along with his sister," Rine swallowed. "Be careful, they're close combat experts and they have Vortian Battle Cloaks!"

"We do not hide in the face of our foe," Ten'va, the female Planet Jacker declared while pulling both of her spears out of the harness on her back while Tal'vo drew a single long, thin bladed sword better fit for duelling. "And we shall stand proud and upon your corpse Rine, son of Skullene."

With a howl of fury she darted forward. Rine fired, but she launched herself into the air a moment earlier and the laser shot under her before she landed on a desk next to Rine and sweep kicked him in the back. He stumbled forward as Tal'vo charged forward. Leka fired her own gun twice at him, but it was like the Planet Jacket could predict where she would aim and used this by sending the lasers glancing off of the flat edge of the blade held at an angle.

"Damn, what kind of metal is that?" Leka muttered before she leaned to the left and further downwards in time to avoid a horizontal swipe of Tal'vo's sword. She swung her rifle up as Tal'vo brought the sword up over his head and the butt of her weapon hit the flat side of his blade. The weapon was knocked aside and Leka snapped her rifle up so that the front half of the barrel hit Tal'vo in the face like a club.

While this fight went on the silver eyed Irken sat on the desk edge with her feet resting on Dib's chest. He dared not to try and attack her from this angle and with those steel toed boots inches from his face.

"You just lay down here, Sir Membrane," The Irken giggled. "Once the other game has been concluded, I shall finish with you."

Rine vaulted over a desk and fired his pistol at Ten'va as the planet jacker assassin performed a sideways flip onto a nearby desk and snatched up a laptop left there. She tore the cables out of it as she heaved it in his direction. Rine blasted the work appliance in half with a single shot, but Ten'va had used the brief distraction to vanished between the rows of desks and chairs. He saw some movement and fired three shots to his left, but only ended up melting through some desks instead of hitting his target. The planet jacker was suddenly right behind him!

She kicked him in the small of his back to try and knock him off balance, but he bent forward and rolled with the move. He was up and twisting around as she placed each of her hands on a desk on either side of her. She pushed herself up with her arms and leaned back while swinging her legs out. Rine's forearms caught her attack and gave him a chance to grab her ankles. He leaned back and placed one foot against the desk on his right-the one her left hand was planted on. He tugged and her hand slipped out from under her.

She hit her head off of a chair and groaned in pain as she lay on the floor. She looked up just in time for Rine's fist to enter her vision and knock her out.

"Damn pixie," He rubbed his back where she had hit him twice during the fight. "All the jumping only gets you so far."

Meanwhile Leka was on the retreat from Tal'vo and his blade. She ducked under swipes that would have taken her head off and twisted or sidestepped jabs that would have torn through her like paper. The Irken snatched up a nearby chair after crouching to avoid her throat being sliced open and held it up as he jammed his blade at her. It went through the chair, but missed Leka's skull. She wrenched the chair to the right and then twisted in the same motion so that Tal'vo lost his weapon.

Leka tossed the chair and sword away and then finished her spin by bringing her right leg up until it was curled and snapped it out while leaning away from Tal'vo. Her foot struck his stomach and sent him flying back into a desk and right over it. Tal'vo joined his sister in blissful sleep.

Rine spotted this and stared at Leka. "How do civvies get taught closed quarters combat like that?"

"I was bored and decided to learn it," Leka replied with a shrug-once again lying to him so he wouldn't ask certain questions. She didn't want to sully this victory by having to off him too...not when she was so close to her target. After this invasion was dealt with she'd have all the time she'd need to finish her real mission. Rine would have pressed for answers but remembered that the human leader was being held hostage at the moment.

"...well that could have gone better," The silver eyed Irken frowned as Rine and Leka closed in on her. "Perhaps you of the Blue Empire are not..._as soft_ as I thought."

"Step away from Dib," Rine ordered her while levelling his pistol at her head. "It's over."

With a scoff the Irken leaned down and to the right a bit. Her arm reached behind the desk she had pinned Dib with and revealed a rifle. She placed the tip on Dib's head as the barrel glowed a bit through lines that gave it a bit of an artistic element. Rine fired his pistol twice upon seeing the gun, but his shots rebounded off of a sort of bubble shield around the assassin that flashed green when shot.

"Yes...it is." Her lips curled back in a sadistic grin.

_Click._

"Drop the gun," The speaker had been using a stealth generator to get close enough to the situation. Upon dropping it she was revealed as a blue eyed Irken with antennae that sloped down instead of curling, and blue slanted eyes...

"Maneeme!" A surprised Rine whispered as Skullene held a pistol of her own to the silver eyed assassin's head.

"Skullene..." The smile didn't vanish from the silver Irken's face. "I've wanted so long to meet you above all the others on Tallest Red's list of 'Undesirables'."

Skullene replied by whipping the handle of her gun across the side of the assassin's head. She dropped her weapon and stumbled off of Dib. Skullene kept her aim on her and rounded the desk to stand next to the silver eyed Irken again. "Don't waste time with talk. Rine, get Mr Membrane out of here."

"Yes maneeme-I mean yes ma'am!" Rine and Leka began to lift the desk enough for Dib to crawl out from under it.

"You know...the might Tallest Shadow could always use somebody like you in his ranks," The silver eyed Irken offered Skullene while examining her from head to toe. "I wouldn't mind working with somebody like you either."

"Keep your eyes on mine, you bitch." Skullene replied.

"Ooh, so cold."

"My last relationship was...stormy, so pardon me if I tell you to take your offer and jam it down your throat." Skullene herded the Irken away from Dib, Leka and Rine. "Your little invasion force is down. Any second now-wait...here they come." Skullene heard the distant roar of engines.

Outside of the command center troopers looked up in time to see a full squadron of fighters with the emblem of the Star Devils on them fly overhead. Twenty strong and fully armed, they unloaded on the Shadow Irken ships and blew them out of the sky as they landed or tried to take off. Once the final assault shuttle went down they had to deal with the escort fighters which had been coming around to make a pass at the camp.

"You'll be answering for all of this," Skullene added. "Bitch."

"Oh yes...but not to you," The assassin looked at Skullene. "And my name isn't 'bitch', it's Sicarious...call me Sic." Then suddenly Skullene's gun was sent flying from her hand and Sicarious was facing her. she had a knife in one hand that sliced upwards and would have jammed itself into her throat if Skullene had not leaned back in time. She only moved her upper body to avoid the assassin's attacks and kept a firm stance.

Sicarious tried to cut horizontally through Skullene's throat, but Skullene leaned back just out of range again and then grabbed the outstretched arm. She pinned the forearm to her chest while wrapping her left arm around it and grasped the knife hand's wrist with her right hand. She jammed her thumb deep into Sicarious' wrist and heard the satisfying sound of the knife hitting the floor a second later.

"You're good," Sicarious whispered into Skullene's antennae and actually moved closer to her.

"I'm guessing you're the type of assassin who likes to pretend she's a whore before she kills." Skullene jammed one elbow up into Sicarious' ribs while maintaining her hold on the now unarmed limb. The assassin responded by driving her knee into Skullene's gut hard enough to make her break her hold and stumble away.

"Close," Sicarious scoffed. "But not exactly...I enjoy myself here and there, and only if I get a weak enough target who's willing enough."

"Of course you just had to tell me that much," Skullene drawled before they got back into their fist fight. Skullene focused more on direct and concise attacks like jabs or elbow strikes while Sicarious favoured kicks and stronger attacks such as knee strikes, kicks, hooks and haymakers.

Then Sicarious unveiled a short blade jutting out from under her right sleeve and stabbed at Skullene's neck. Skullene leaned back and twisted so fast her right leg was a blur for a split second when it hit Sicarious' forearm. The assassin gasped in pain, but aside from micro fractures in the bone her arm wasn't injured. But then Skullene planted her right leg and repeated her rotation on that foot while her left leg came up and curled to her chest before it snapped out and connected with Sicarious' chest. This knocked the assassin on her back and winded her.

Slowly she got up and faced Skullene. She was gasping for breath a bit; then again they both were but she had more injuries than Skullene so far. "So...this is the infamous Skullene at her best...gotta say I'm impressed." She grinned and pulled back her left sleeve. She wore a battle suit under her clothes, a semi skin tight variant that could hold some electronic devices...such as her own Stealth Generator. "But I can't go home I'll just have to adapt."

Skullene listened carefully for footsteps and watched for shimmers of air. It would be easier to see when she was closer...but after a minute there was no sign that Sicarious was anywhere near her. So where could she have gone...?

"Shit!" Skullene looked to the doors where Rine and Leka had taken Dib.

Xxx

The trio had reached the front entrance. The main yard of the Command Center was abandoned and stacked with bodies of the fallen. Outside they heard the last of the Shadow Irkens being wiped out.

"I'm going back for her," Rine told Leka. "Get Membrane to safety."

"Your mother will be fine, Rine." Leka insisted. "She's an expert."

"Oh yes she is," They all scrambled backwards towards the doors when Sicarious appeared in front of them. She held the rifle from earlier; the one Skullene had relieved her of. She raised the gun just before laser fire came from above. Skullene landed on her spider legs while firing a gun at Sicarious. One clipped her rifle just as she managed to shoot through one of Skullene's spider legs. Skullene let herself land on her feet while Sicarious tossed her now useless rifle aside and flexed her right hand. The metal tips on her gloves extended into sharp points.

Skullene kept firing at her but the assassin had reactivated her shield. The lasers bounced off as Skullene kept taking precision shots at Sicarious, and walking to meet her until she was ten feet away. Sicarious snarled and reared her right arm back. Skullene leaped up while drawing a knife of her own and angling it down so it would slip into Sicarious' throat-

SCHLUCK!

Skullene gasped, her knife sank instead into Sicarious' shoulder...while the silver eyed assassin had brought her left arm up and re-extended the blade hidden under her sleeve. It stuck deep into Skullene now. Her grip on the knife faltered, and then Skullene fell back off of Sicarious' blade. The assassin sneered and slashed Skullene across the face with her claw-glove. Skullene fell on her side, blood flowing out of her.

"MANEEME!"

Suddenly Rine had lunged forward across his mother and punched Sicarious in the face. Several blue soldiers rushed in and saw the engagement. They saw Rine strike the slver eyed Irken and saw Skullene laying on the ground while Sicarious had blood on both of her hands...

They raised their rifles and poured multiple energy bursts into her shield-which seemed to defend against only energy based attacks. The assassin swore and pulled a canister from her belt. It released a smoke as she tossed it at the ground and vanished into the smog. Rine snatched his mother's pistol up and fired after her. But when it cleared...she was gone.

Now she was second priority...Rine's mother was bleeding out!

"Maneeme!" He rushed back to Skullene and turned her on her back. Her left eye was shut, but blood was seeping out from under the eye lid-likely due to the three long cuts from the claw-glove. Both of her hands were pressed down on her gut area where she had been stabbed just below the rib cage. She was breathing heavily, and had blood flowing from her mouth as she coughed.

"It pierced her respiratory section!" One soldier, a medic said as he knelt next to her. "We need to get her out of here and to the medical center. Boys, help us out here! Mama Skulls is injured!"

That was her nickname...Mama Skulls...at first she thought it was an insult but found they used it more affectionately. Why wouldn't they? She trained them...ate with them...made the food they ate actually...showed them discipline...relaxed and enjoyed leisure time with them...a few steps short of what she and Rine had.

And now Mama Skulls was dying.

"Maneeme, hang on!" Rine whispered as he held Skullene's hands while she was lifted onto a stretcher. "Just hang on, please!" His voice was rising in volume, desperation crept in and tears welled in his eyes as she was carried away. "_Mom don't you die!_"

Xxx

"Dibbun Membrane still lives," Sicarious grunted as she sat inside of her personal ship, treating a few wounds she had taken during her escape. Splor was long behind her now. "And we barely killed a hundred soldiers in total."

"I didn't expect you to kill many...in fact I didn't expect you to kill Dib Membrane at all." The image before her was shaded, but she knew who it was and that he wasn't intentionally hiding...it was an affect of the smaller form he held. Tallest Shadow was relaxing on his throne with his son Hunter held in his arms. "I was counting on Skullene being there though and trying to protect them all. You did what I needed you to."

"What?" Had Tallest Shadow tricked her? Was this a sort of test? He had always been honest and precise about mission details before...why trick her now?

"Sicarious, you have another mission that shall begin immediately."

"B-but my Tallest-"

"I know, you are injured and exhausted from your previous assignment," Shadow said gently-yet she still flinched. "Do not worry, that shall be cared for. But within the next hour you shall be picked up by a ship and taken aboard. Your weapons and belongings shall remain in your possession if you do not fight your hosts, and cooperate with their every demand."

"What is my mission, my Tallest?" Sicarious asked nervously.

"...you are entering a tournament, my faithful assassin." Shadow said. "And you shall not be alone in this. You shall have certain allies...including myself should the situation demand it."

Tallest Shadow himself would come to help her? This was such an honour! But...

"What are my objectives, my Tallest?"

"In the tournament will be a number of individuals who I would prefer to see dead...but they are secondary objectives," Shadow said. "Your primary goal will be...well I'll send that to you in the form of a self decoding message so that nobody will figure that out except you, and only after you have landed at your final drop off point." He set his son down, and the light returned to his features. "I know this is a rather frightening assignment, my assassin but I would not send you unless I felt that you were ready for it."

"I shall not fail you, my Tallest!" Sicarious stood and saluted him.

"Please, with how important this is...you may call me by my birth name," Shadow said. "...call me Lok...Lok Hunter."

Sicarious felt her heart flutter...well actually it was the cardiac section of her Squeedlyspooch. Tallest Shadow hadn't made it a big secret that Shadow wasn't his real name, but he wouldn't tell anybody the real one. To be told it was...to practically stand by his side and be his equal!

"I won't fail you...Lok," Sicarious said.

"I know you won't," Shadow-no..._Lok_ replied softly. "Good luck, Sicarious."

Xxx

"...the first one has been acquired,"

"Well that was easy. I'm impressed, I thought she would have put up a fight."

"She gave herself up actually...I had to keep up with her on her way to her quarters. I'm heading for the next subject now." The Masked Irken leaned back in her seat, the shadows of the dimly lit cockpit hiding her currently unmasked face. "There's more...she's fresh out of a battle over on Splor...she claims that she killed another subject: Skullene."

"That will put a damper on this...but we have many more to collect. Luckily there is one such replacement...and he is in close proximity to a second." Two images popped up on the main screen. "Irkens Leka and Rine. Bring them to me alive."

"Fine." She cut the link. "...knowing his whiny ass he'll get back at me for 'lack of proper phone manners'." The disgruntled champion set off for her next target.

Xxx

Okay I spent some late hours working on this and I typed an odd random sentence or two without realizing it. I never realized how being tired could affect my typing skills until now. If you see any weird random sentences that just don't look like they should be there then let me know. XD

_**So far I have introduced Leka (property of Invader-Leka) and Sicarious (property of InvaderJrek). I'd like to personally thank them both for their contributions and promise to respect their characters.**_


	3. The Crime Lord

FACTORY 13

Invader Zim is property of Jhonen Vasquez

Seeing as ngrey651's Frequency will be involved once more I also don't own Lilo & Stitch either

Nor do I own any of the characters, ideas and/or OCs not of my own making. And I extend my thanks to the authors who have offered their characters to assist in building this.

The current OCs from the List of Twenty on my DA account are...

_**Nova**_

_**Tayon 'Tay'**_

_**Wiyn**_

_**Thorn**_

_**Leka**_

_**Sicarious (Acquired)**_

_**Al Capone (Located)**_

_**Meq (Located)**_

_**And Jrek (Located)**_

This leaves 11 more spaces for anybody interested in registering an OC of their own. Please note I will only accept 2 OCs per person-ngrey651 being an exception since five of his OCs are now involved.

Read and Review!

Xxx

**Accessing encrypted files...**

**Accessing file AL CAPONE**

**Accessing file MEQ**

**Accessing file JREK**

"...a human? Seriously?"

"He only dresses like one. That profile is...out of date."

"What is he then?"

"We'll find out later. Just...don't try to get a peak under that mask of his. I've seen images of his previous fights, and modified your visor to offer partial protection from the effect of his powers."

"He looks like he's better for show rather than fighting."

"He was singled out for a reason."

"Alright, but what about the other two? One looks useless and the other is...we don't take Invaders of the Crimson Empire."

"They were both volunteered by Tallest Red."

"And of course that makes everything better."

"It gets you closer to your next fix."

"Don't remind me," The Masker Irken muttered, and then slid the tip of a needle into her right arm. She passed her thumb over a yellow line on the side of the syringe and watched the yellow turn to green before the contents were sent into her. She exhaled and relaxed back against her chair. "I feel like a junky." Every time she took the drug the world would swim around her and colours would fade or glow at random from her perspective.

Yet if she didn't take it she felt like the world was tipping to one side and that she was being crushed and spun around. She tried to slowly work herself off, but she didn't have enough for that. So she had to minimize the severity of her addiction to the injection. That was her best chance to get free.

"Did you know that the drug wasn't the only thing I put inside of you?"

Had she fallen asleep or something? She felt like she had just blanked out for the past minute or so...

"That would be putting it mildly, my dear."

How did he do that?

"Simple, I ordered you to narrate your every thought after you have a rebellious thought about escaping my control," He chuckled. "Through the two control chips which came as part of your surgery after your victory."

He was controlling her now?

"Yes, yes I am and you can stop voicing your thoughts now." The speaker was enjoying himself.

"Why don't I remember any orders?" The Masked Irken asked. She was not exactly scared, but if this freak was able to make her react to actions and thoughts like a sleeper agent waiting to be activated then what else could he do?

"Well I simply ordered you to forget being told the original order afterwards. The chip in your skull obeyed that, but your PAK control chip preserved that order...as a subconscious message to put it plainly. You would follow my order without even knowing that you had an order." He was rubbing it in her face now. "I also ordered you to forget that you were speaking out loud every time you had to voice your thoughts. When I told you to stop voicing your thoughts the entire order was cancelled, so you can remember them now. That is the wonder of technology: even a living being is like a computer, and can be programmed like one!"

He was right about that in this case. He had programmed her to respond to certain conditions like a computer to a virus or a message.

"Now, my dear...you have another acquirement to make,"

"Yes sir-"

"Yes _master._"

"Yes...master."

"Good...now the first you shall acquire is the Crime Lord."

Xxx

**Terran Federation Space**

**Mars Orbit**

**Orbital Habitat 9 (Colossus)**

Al Capone was not human, but nobody in the human race took the old archetypal 'mafia member' position as far as he did. The masked mobster had been a nuisance to American authorities during the early 21st century and humanity's expansion only made him a problem for colonial governments. He solicited drug trade, prostitution-which had become impossible to do on Earth nowadays, gun smuggling and most recently corporate espionage. He undertook a number of these assignments himself rather than letting an underling do it for him...

He only ever said that he did it to stay in shape.

And the White Comet Corporation had been the source of a number of meal tickets for him and his growing empire. They were the Terran Federation's lead designer of ships among many small applications...they were also the most targeted boy on the block. So Al didn't have any regrets whenever he had to off a few of their employees and mercenaries.

However he did regret bringing help on this particular job.

"You know, if this door doesn't open...I'll throttle you with that extension cord there," He nodded to the coiled wire that lay nearby while one of his 'soldiers' worked on forcing the doors before him open. Several other low ranking soldiers stood close by, and unlike Al they wore armour and carried up to date weaponry. The one by the doors felt like Al's eyes were boring holes into him...then again everybody got that feeling when they looked at the goggle lenses built into the khaki coloured mask the crime lord wore all the time.

"It-it's decoding now sir," The young man stuttered.

"And there's no sign of security," One of the older, more experienced members of the group added to relieve the tension. "The cameras are still playing back that footage of empty hall ways."

"I don't like to take risks for jobs as important as this," Though he still sounded care free, Al Capone still sent shivers down the spine of the unfortunate hacker before him. "So open the fucking door already."

"It's opening in three...two...one." The hacker disconnected from the port and stood up before the heavy metallic doors slid open with a hiss of compressed air. The corridor beyond lit up as the motion sensors registered their presence. Al Capone rested the barrel of his Thompson submachine gun on one shoulder as he walked past the relieved soldier.

"All of you get in here and clean out everything that isn't nailed down," Al Capone instructed. "Make it snappy or it's your asses with a side of cheesy sticks for dinner tonight." The soldiers darted past him to the door at the end of the hall and entered a laboratory that was currently unoccupied. Despite being low ranked they were at least professional in their search for what was needed. This particular raid was for a formula to a new synthetic fuel that was being designed.

The Crimson Empire offered Al Capone a lot for it...

But the Shadow Empire offered the same amount and had the intellect to back up any threats they made. Though Al never showed fear he wouldn't dare take on Tallest Shadow...the only living being to shrug off the very sight of what lay under the mobster's mask and clothes and go on to have a drink while looking at it. Al had shown his form to Shadow on a dare, and to this day wondered if that Tallest was even Irken...

Oh well, he paid Al good money and kept his troops equipped.

"Freeze!" Al heard footsteps behind him; heavy foot falls of military issue boots belonging to Federation MPs who were assigned here as guards. He turned his head and saw two pulse rifles being aimed right in his face as a half dozen more MPs rushed into the lab to hunt down his soldiers.

"Drop the weapon," One MP ordered. "Do it now, ass hole!"

Al sighed and held his free hand up so they could see it. Then he knelt and set his Tommy on the floor...

But then the soldiers noticed a shape forming in Al's left hand. He twisted, and the ice pick that had somehow appeared in his grasp sliced through the anterior ligaments of the knees of the soldier standing on his left. The man shrieked and fell while his pulse rifle went off and fired a few shots into the ceiling. His partner was startled and stumbled away; Al didn't waste time in making the ice pick vanish...and replaced it with a Molotov cocktail which was already lit.

"You look stressed," He said to the nervous soldier as his friend writhed and bawled on the floor. "You need a drink." Then he tossed the Molotov right into the face of the stunned man. Luckily his helmet protected him, but he still felt the searing heat and screamed as he collapsed and began to roll around.

Al turned and snatched his Tommy gun back up. He shook his head as he chambered a round. "Some people just can't stick to a simple plan can they?"

His soldiers were engaging the MPs, and the fight was pretty much even. So Al took this chance to rush over to the central computer console and tapped into the encrypted files rather easily. Then he downloaded all he could on the fuel into a single data drive which he ejected and pocketed.

_Click._

Al knew now that a gun was pointed at his head again. The one holding it was also a safer distance from him: an arm's length or so.

"You know, thieves should never bring a commando team with 'em," A male voice said. "It's bad for business. Now messin' with the cameras was a good idea; I'll give you that...but really predictable."

"Oh really?" Al turned a bit. "...well then let me show you something new."

He spun, swinging his trench coat up so that the fabric blocked the view of the shooter and vice versa. A single shot punched through the coat before Al kicked out and threw his coat over the shooter. The man landed against a nearby table. Under the thick black coat a pair of red eyes momentarily glowed before they shut. Al dashed forward and then twisted clockwise. His right leg came up and then thrust out, but it missed its target and sent the table flying across the lab.

The man had leaned over to the right and just barely dodged the attack. Now he grasped the coat and tore it off while lightly jumping back out of range of the crime lord's follow up punch. The man under the coat was a red eyed Irken of all things. He wore dark colours, and had the emblem of the blue empire on his coat...

And the emblem of the Star Devils right next to the symbol of a Captain! Only one Captain existed in the Star Devil division...

Rikalo 'Rik' pushed aside Al Capone's next strike and then slammed his elbow into his khaki mask. The force of this staggered Al Capone and allowed Rik to go on the offensive. He slid feet first under Al's next kick and twisted as he stopped so he was facing the masked crime lord again. Al suddenly revealed a pair of knives from under the shorter coat he wore under the trench coat and began to twist and lean as he stabbed and slashed. Rik leaned back and planted his palms on the floor before performing a back flip out of range of Al's blades.

"I didn't know the infamous Rik was such a ballet dancer," Al taunted.

"I didn't know you were the galaxy's biggest wannabe mobster, but you don't see me pokin' fun at yah," Rik shrugged as he and Al circled one another. The distant gun shots of the MP security team and Al Capone's soldiers were growing faint as they focused on one another. Slowly the two formed their own plans...

Al Capone formed a bat from air particle and swung it at the side of Rik's neck. The Irken stopped him by bracing an elbow against the arm and stopped the bat short. Then he swung his other arm up and slammed his fist into the side of Al's bat arm. Al's bat arm was thrown off to his right and left his left side exposed. Rik took this chance to swing his right leg up while twisting and slightly pushing off of the ground with his other foot. His knee hit Al below the ribs area and actually managed to make the masked alien stumble and hold the area Rik had hit.

'So this guy isn't as tough as he likes people to think,' Rik thought before an astoundingly fast punch struck his chin. Then he was heaved off of the ground, over Al Capone's shoulder and slammed into a wall. Al formed an ice pick in one hand and swung it down. Rik managed to move his head aside, but still got scratched under his left eye by the blade. He grabbed Al's head between his feet and tugged his head right into the wall he himself had struck moments ago.

Al grunted, and his hat began to fall off before he adjusted it to keep it on. Rik twisted so he rolled onto his feet.

"Alright...hate to do this, but you're really slowing me down now," Al said as he reached for his mask...

_Shing!_

_Schluck!_

Al grunted in pain and looked at the knife that had gone right through his black gloves. It was a single piece of metal with no hilt shaped into a perfect form. It had two blades that ran parallel to one another. There was not a curve on the weapon, only sharp jagged corners

"Al Capone of the unknown," A voice, deep and obviously filtered by machinery to sound computerized spoke. "I've been looking for you."

The knife thrower appeared seemingly from a darkened corner of the room. Al Capone was only aware of the assailant when the coat they wore shifted. It was changing colour from a pitch black into a soft brown shade. The long gloves that the knife user wore mimicked the coat, as did the mask that the newcomer wore. Judging by the slight curves of her body she was a female, and what little green flesh visible indicated that she was an Irken.

"And who the fuck would you be?" Al growled while he tore the knife out of his hand.

"..." The masked Irken merely stared at him, tilting her head as if his attitude amused or interested her.

"Oh so now you're all silent?" Al Capone demanded.

"Your men died silently," She replied with a shrug, sounding like she was pointing out a comparison between Al's statement and her own instead of stating a fact. Now that Rik was listening he realized that the gun shots had died entirely. "So did the officers."

Al Capone hardly cared for some grunts; he had plenty more where they came from anyways. But this Irken, whoever she was, had attacked him and was sabotaging a rather important operation he needed to pay the bills. He jerked the knife out of his hand and tried to flex digits of the damaged appendage. At first there was no response until the damaged tissue and bone regenerated. This was a new and rather short term solution for clean breaks that Al had acquired, but it would only serve him a few times in a fight before he would have to stop for at least a day or two.

If he kept on trying to regenerate he would end up using up so much energy, which was converted into tissue, he would die on the spot. The technology required to stimulate instantaneous regeneration wasn't cheap to replace either, and it had limited amounts of use. He would have to adjust the settings on the regenerative nanites to focus only on more serious wounds instead of every little scrape and bruise he got. But that could wait until afterwards.

"So what's the big deal? Those soldiers aren't cheap to replace," Al Capone told a partial truth; only their equipment and training cost him a noticeable amount of money.

The woman stood as still as a statue. It was eerie to see that she did not move to loosen her no doubt stiff muscles, or expand her chest to breathe in-not that Al was focused on that part of her...no seriously, he wasn't. Stop thinking that and read the damn story!

After a moment she suddenly produced a small disc shaped device and tossed it to Al, who caught it in one hand. "Your presence is requested by my...master." She sounded like she had chosen that word carefully; perhaps she had other things she would prefer to call this 'master' of hers. "He has a special event that he would be honored to have you participate in. A number of others in similar professions shall be attending." It also sounded rehearsed...mostly thanks to the fact that she sounded bored and spoke like she was reading it off of the inside of her mask.

"...maybe later," Al shook his head. "First I'll take care of some troublesome business..."

Suddenly he shot forward. The masked Irken was caught off guard by the sudden move, but she managed to lean back so that the heel of Al's foot missed her by inches. Al had swung a reverse heel kick at her. Without even stopping while twisting clockwise he planted his foot and spun on it while bringing his other leg up in a round house kick.

The masked Irken's gloved hand caught his ankle and forced his leg up a bit. Al's other foot came off of the ground as her grip forced him to lean away from her further. His hands shot out and pressed against the floor before he twisted. His left foot was thrust up at the masked Irken's face, but she tilted her head to the side in time to avoid having her mask cracked in half. Al pulled his foot back and jammed it against her gut, pushing his right foot free of her grip and propelling himself into a forward roll.

Just as he began to turn to face her again the masked Irken flung another knife through the air. Al managed to dodge it, and heard it lodge itself deep into the wall behind him. But then the masked Irken dove past him with amazing speed and had snatched the knife from where it rested within a split second of it landing. She swung at Al's exposed back, and the crime lord formed a bat in mid air and used it to hit the flat of the blade, knocking it aside, and sparing him another wasted regeneration.

His swing took the knife and his bat arm lower to the ground. The masked Irken grasped his bat wrist with her free hand and used his arm as leverage to lift her feet off the ground and grasp his head between her knees. She arched her back and swung her knife, revealing that she had a cable attached to the handle now-how did she manage to pull that off so fast? The knife buried itself into the floor behind her and ahead of Al Capone. She tugged on it, and the wire went taught and pulled them both towards it until Al was bent over enough that the masked Irken managed to send him flying right over her and rolled backwards only to come to her feet with hardly any effort at all.

"Are you finished acting like a child now?" She asked with her back to Al.

"I just needed you to toss me over here so I had some distance," He replied. "After all, these things are a bitch to fire from five inches away."

The masked Irken spun and saw Al now holding his Thompson. "Say cheese, bitch!"

He opened fire just as Rik swore and dove into cover. Bullets, far stronger than regular projectiles used by humans decades ago and possibly as effective as any of their plasma weapons tore through walls and tables. Rik found the cover he had taken slowly crumbling and formed an energy shield with his PAK legs while stumbling back from the table he had flipped over. The masked Irken however...was _dodging_ the barrage, or at least she seemed to be.

No...it was a shield that appeared around her, flashing red every time a bullet struck it. But she was dodging a good deal of Al Capone's attack, and getting closer all the while. Obviously her shield could only handle so much, and a sustained amount of fire could break through it. She was now on Al Capone's right, dashing along the wall and leaping up. She placed her left foot on the surface of the wall, and suddenly a sort of jet fired from her boot. It was brief, but powerful enough to propel her through the air and shoot her right past Al Capone...and letting her snatch his Thompson from him in mid flight.

She landed behind him just as the doors to the lab became occupied again. More security officers were rushing in. Al Capone spotted them and knew that the way this fight was going would wind up with him dead, injured or in jail...and that would tarnish his perfect record of clean escapes! He had to reschedule this little fight after he researched the style of this masked Irken later.

Through one of the holes he had created between the sections of the lab he saw the corpse of one of his soldiers. And on his torso was a bandoleer of grenades of varying types...

He dashed forward while ignoring several shots sent his way by the fresh security team. He dove forward through the hole and rolled to a stop next to the corpse. He checked the grenades and found the type he was looking for...

He tossed four of the canisters out into the room he had just come from, and watched as they released clouds of gas. The guards began to hack and cough, backing away from the cloud. The masked Irken stood in the middle, undisturbed thanks to her mask, and searching for Al. Rikalo had activated the atmospheric bubble helmet built into his PAK and was helping one guard stumble away from the gas released by the grenades.

Al grabbed the other two grenades he had chosen and leaped back through the hole. He tossed one grenade up into the air...and seeing as the being under the mask had no eyes or ears to speak of the flash-bang grenade did little to stop him from pushing through the security guards. Rik collapsed against a wall, a ringing noise being all he could register. His eyes had been shut when the grenade went off luckily, so he could now see Al Capone flee. The masked Irken was close behind the crime lord.

By the time Rik was able to stand on his own and could hear again they were long gone.

Xxx

Al managed to get out of the compound and out into the streets of the orbital habitat the same way he had managed to enter. He had snuck his team in through a tunnel burrowed into the maintenance corridors under the compound's central floors. Luckily it was unguarded when he found it, as was the exit out in the public sector. Colossus had gone into lockdown thanks to the events in the lab though, so escaping would have to wait. He could hide in the safe house he had constructed before the operation, following the wisdom that 'hindsight is everything.'

The habitat was set to follow a twenty four hour cycle, rotating so that the massive dome covering the public sector would be exposed to or hidden from the sun. The dome overhead gave an amazing view, and managed to filter out the blinding light of the sun. A shield over it caused debris to bounce off. While he sat down in an alley to catch his breath and plan out his next move Al Capone had a view of the shield flaring up when the remains of an old satellite struck the shield and were incinerated.

"Well that was a bust," He muttered. "And that bitch took my Thompson too...that'll be expensive to replace."

"More so than a limb or two?"

Al was on his feet and had an ice pick in each hand. The speaker stood at the mouth of the alley. He was in a casual pose, with his hands in the pockets of a long black coat that looked a little formal for a fight. His dark hair was messy and growing out a bit, and clashed with his pale skin. But what was most odd were his eyes...they were like fire. They would change from red to orange to yellow and back again.

"Listen a-hole, I'm not in the mood to put up with anymore shit today," Al Capone dismissed the ice picks. "Don't you have a party to get to?" He certainly looked the part...actually he looked like he would have fit in with the era that Al himself mimicked based off of the clothes he wore: the coat, a button up vest under it, a white formal shirt, black slacks and matching shoes.

Suddenly the young man tossed something. The object arched through the air, and Al recognized it-prompting him to catch his Thompson. "What the hell?"

"I picked that up before I followed you," the young man shrugged. "I thought you'd miss it."

"...thanks," Al checked the weapon and was pleased to find it intact and undamaged. "So who the hell are you?"

"A contractor of sorts," The human replied. "One who has taken the bounty on you to be brought in alive."

"Oh, and you're a professional?" Al had to deal with a thousand freelancers every week. This guy didn't seem so different...aside from the eyes.

"Not exactly...it's just my past time," The human's every move was relaxed, a leisure pace and a cocky swagger.

"Oh joy," Al aimed the gun at him. "Look, just get lost now and I'll forget you annoyed me. I'm in a good mood thanks to you bringing my gun back to me."

"Hm...while we talk about moods..." The man licked his lips and revealed teeth that were far too sharp and long to be human. The temperature began to rise noticeably. "I'm bored."

"Go find yourself a girl to keep you warm then, there's a brothel down the-"

"And I may be a little hungry," He added.

"They serve drinks if you pay well. Now get the fuck out of my sight or I'll-"

Suddenly the barrel of his gun was forced up, and the human stood in front of him. "I despise brothels and I don't drink alcohol. However I do use alcohol for something else that brings me great joy." He held up the barrel of the Thompson with one hand, and Al could barely keep him from ripping it out of his hands.

In the human's free hand was something Al had not seen at all: a Molotov cocktail in a beer bottle. The human smiled pleasantly as he saw Al glance down. "Give up yet?"

Al tore his weapon free and fired point blank into the human, ripping through him with over thirty bullets and making him collapse back against the alley wall. Blood poured from his stomach and stained his clothes. The human still had a smile on his face as he stared at Al.

"Don't know what the hell you are, but you sure as hell ain't bullet proof," Al chuckled and turned...only for a hand to spin him back around. The human was standing up, using a death grip to keep Al in place. He did not seem bothered by the bullets.

"Bullets don't work well against me," He said. "But slicing and stabbing, that's another story." He swiped one arm up, and a clawed hand covered in black scales jammed itself into Al's chest. The crime lord was sent flying down the alley by the blow and landed on his back. The human held another Molotov-the first had smashed when he dropped it while being shot.

"Now, I hate it when people act so rudely," He continued. "You could have at least let me introduce myself before you shot me up." He knelt next to Al, who was stunned and wounded now. His eyes flared up like somebody had poured gasoline on the fire within them. A single black pupil stood out against the blazing background of the irises. "My name...is Carlos."

He stood up, the Molotov in his hand suddenly lighting on its own. "Now, since you were acting so inappropriate I'll do just that-"

Suddenly the Molotov shattered in his hands, and set the human on fire. He let out a howl, more of fury than pain and looked to the cause. The masked Irken from before emptied the pistol she had snatched from one of the security officers into Carlos, and then she slammed into him. If the heat bothered her she gave no indication as she shoved him aside. Her coat did not catch on fire in the least.

She snatched Al up, hefting the crime lord like he weighed nothing and was out the opposite end of the alley by the time the fire was out. Carlos slowly straightened up, his flesh and hair growing to match his previous appearance. Then the fabric of his clothes, scattered to the winds earlier as small black scraps, gathered and reformed into the formal attire Carlos favoured.

Once he was done the spirit of chaos incarnate looked up and sighed. "...touché, I should have kept my guard up for that." He shrugged. "Aw well..." He held up something: the knife he had taken from the masked Irken's belt as she pushed her way past him. "Everybody leaves a trail in everything they touch, even if it isn't a scent."

His grin was that of the devil. "And when I follow it, I'm gonna rip that mask off before I skin her face with my bare hands!"

Xxx

**End of chapter**


	4. The Warden and her Prey

FACTORY 13

Invader Zim is property of Jhonen Vasquez

Seeing as ngrey651's Frequency will be involved once more I also don't own Lilo & Stitch either

Nor do I own any of the characters, ideas and/or OCs not of my own making. And I extend my thanks to the authors who have offered their characters to assist in building this.

The current OCs from the List of Twenty on my DA account are...

_**Nova (Located)**_

_**Tayon 'Tay' (Acquired by secondary operative)**_

_**Wiyn (Located)**_

_**Thorn (Acquired by secondary operative)**_

_**Leka**_

_**Sicarious (Acquired)**_

_**Al Capone (Acquired)**_

_**Meq (Located)**_

_**And Jrek (Located)**_

_**Geni-I realized that I accidently kept calling her Devi (Located by secondary operative)**_

_**Katya (Located by secondary operative)**_

This leaves 9 more spaces for anybody interested in registering an OC of their own. Please note I will only accept 2 OCs per person-ngrey651 being an exception since five of his OCs are now involved.

Read and Review!

Xxx

**Accessing encrypted files...**

**Accessing file WIYN...**

**Accessing file NOVA...**

"...you have _got_ to be joking." The masked Irken glared at the screen. It showed her the profile of the next acquisition: some xenophobic psychotic bitch named Wiyn. She served Tallest Red with a zealous worship, and she would be all too glad to fight with the masked Irken, Vesira for the mere reason that she did not fit the Elite's definition of 'Irken Perfection'.

"We don't choose people you like," Her master said scathingly. "We choose the ones who will bring the best ratings. And this one will bring in quite a few in the Blue Empire and non-Irken races. She is quite...infamous."

"Why do you think I dread meeting her?" She shut the profile. Despite her protests she was already plotting a course for Wiyn's location. "And for once it'll be a professional opponent at full strength without anybody having beaten them down in advance that I'm taking."

"Just do your job," Her master snarled. "Or your next dosage goes in a trash chute! Youve been taking so long I had to send somebody else out to acquire other contestants."

She glanced down at the syringe in her hands. She had maybe a week's worth of the drug left. She wouldn't get anymore until she had used it all up, and even then her master would sometimes make her wait longer before giving her what she needed.

Her master spoke again after taking some breaths. "I have some...convenient news...Wiyn is near two more of your targets, Nova and the drone Meq."

"Why would she be in prison?" Vesira's day could not become anymore inconvenient.

"She's the executioner for Nova and Meq."

"...well that's just convenient then," She muttered. "Did that Invader and the Chemist cause anymore trouble?"

"They are docile for now. Do your job and don't worry about them escaping once you've delivered them to me. I'm dispatching another operative to help you with this. You'll need a distraction to grab these three and this individual is perfect for such a task."

"Yes, master."

Then she set course for the Crimson Imperial Prison of Outer Irk.

Xxx

"She's been deep into Federation and Irken territory." The Irken was taller than any other occupant in the room. Unlike most Tallests he also had muscle to his figure, and instead of the robed and hover belts of a Tallest he wore a long blue coat of an Admiral-merely with a Tallest crest planted upon the chest. Not that he needed it anyways, for nobody could mistake Tallest Blue, aka: Tallest Envon.

"And both times she has escaped," Dibbun Membrane nodded, his image projected from nearly halfway across the Blue Empire from where Envon stood in the War Room of his flagship: Setepia. "And she left with some extra baggage both times."

"First Smeetery Alpha...where she took Zim and Volt," Envon muttered. "Then Colossus, where she took that criminal. But why is she kidnapping random targets?"

"Specifically random targets of great importance or infamy," Dib added. "There's a pattern or a reason in there somewhere Envon, we just have to figure out what she's after specifically."

"There have been other disappearances of similarity to these ones in other areas," Envon showed Dib a list. "First, one Tayon, Irken, a former nurse who was found out for several murders and for selling out three of her own patients for sex and experiments to fund the hospital she worked at. Again, the infamy stands. Also she has another thing in common with the other abductees."

"She's a fighter," Dib realized. "They're kidnapping fighters, really talented ones. But why?"

"Well here's another trend: most of these abductees are opposed to the Crimson Empire or are criminals. The latest disappearance has been in the Shadow Empire: Irken Thorn, a cannibal of all things and a mercenary to boot. She was actually assisting an operative by providing him information when the safe house they were in was attacked. The body of the operative was found, but there was not a drop of blood from Thorn to be found."

"Stop wasting time already! Do you know where she is or not!" The image of Gazlene Membrane was glowing red instead of blue as if to reflect her attitude. She was pacing furiously on her side of the link, but to Envon and Dib she would look like she was walking in place.

"No," Envon replied. "But oddly enough some of my more fortunate informants within the Shadow Empire have found mention of a masked Irken of sorts. One who is a knife wielder and is rather acrobatic like our mystery abductor." He sat down and leaned back casually with one leg crossed over the other. "Rik also spotted Carlos the second time this masked Irken appeared, and got burnt by her too."

"He's recently taken a job as a bounty hunter if I recall," Dib nodded his head. "Another of his so called hobbies. The last time around it was being a baker and we know how that turned out."

"I hear they are still repairing that street," Envon nodded. "But that is irrelevant. Carlos was spotted by the team I had assigned to trail him on Earth last I heard. How did he arrived at Colossus within several hours? He was nowhere near any spaceports. And he arrives right as Al Capone raids a facility, and this masked Irken appears."

"I doubt anybody will understand Carlos," Dib shook his head. "But maybe he can tell us where volt and Zim are."

"I hope he can..." Gaz whispered, making sure her back as turned to them both and that they could not hear her.

Xxx

**Far from any of them...**

"This is just a dream..." She whispered, hands clasped to her good antenna and tugging it down. "This is just a bad dream."

The young Irken was terrified despite what looked like a hospitable environment. Vines grew along the walls and floor of the room she stood in, and the roof was open to a sunny sky. Nature had claimed this chamber after a long period of neglect. But to her this was living nightmare.

She was lucky to be alive at all after what she had encountered. Her body bore a number of bruises, all of them from hands with just two fingers on them. Some were deep scratch marks that bled. One had even sliced through the flesh of her left cheek to show the inside of her mouth-and three shattered zipper teeth. She had been too slow to run and lost her other antenna as a result.

But the thing that did this to her was still out there somewhere. She could always hear it, but when she didn't was when it was at its deadliest. When she could not hear it, the thing was about to pounce. But she was safe in here, with the doors all sealed and locked. As strong as it was, it couldn't break through solid metal or stone. And if it tried she would have enough time to shoot it...the thing was fast when it wanted to be.

Suddenly she heard a rapping on the door behind her. Her body became stiff as a board as terror took over and rendered her a 'dear in the headlights'. She crawled over to a corner and curled into a ball with her PAK legs unfolded to set up a barrier between herself and whatever came...

"In the name of the Almighty _ZIIIM_ I command you to open this door!" A familiar voice howled as several pairs of fists pounded on the metal.

A second voice added. "Open up! Hurry! Please!"

Others besides herself were here? She didn't want to be left all alone again! She scrambled to her feet and leaped at the door, grabbed the handle, unlocked it, and swung it open. Two Irkens came tumbling into the room, and she could hear the rushed footsteps of something else not far behind them. So she slammed herself against the door and forced it shut. Then with seconds to spare she locked it again, and the creature pursuing the two Irkens howled in frustration, banging its fists uselessly against the door.

The woman looked over the two Irkens she had rescued. One was taller than her and had yellow eyes, a white lab coat and antennae with biohazard shapes on the tips. The other wore what looked like a mix of the Old Empire Invader uniform style mixed with the blue sleeveless coat of a Blue Imperial Irken scientist. Both of them were gasping for breath as they climbed to their feet.

"Thank you so much!" The former, known as Volt said while giving her a hug. "We would have been dead in we stayed out there a few seconds longer!"

"Yes, yes, indeed she is amazing," Zim said, acting as if the nonexistent dust on his coat mattered more. "But she is not nearly as amazing as _Zim!_" He wagged one finger as if scolding a child. "Now slightly less superior She-Irken, reveal to Zim the location of this planet so that I might call the almighty Tallest Blue to turn it into a scrap heap!"

This was Zim! The actual, real lived Zim! Nearly a year ago he had reappeared in the media as a member of the Blue Empire-which served to cause several thousand Irkens to defect to the Shadow or Crimson Empires. Most stayed because they hoped Zim would cause Red and Shadow more damage than he would Envon...and that he had helped to reintroduce smeeteries. Envon's empire's population had already begun a slow, trickling increase.

"Z-z-zim?" She stuttered.

"Yes! Observe Volt-Genius, watch as this less superior Irken sits in awe at the awesome power of-"

"Are you alright?" Volt asked as he examined her, ignoring Zim at the same time. "These look bad, but I have plenty of medical supplies on hand. Here, sit down." He gently sat her down.

"What? Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Don't ignore Zim! Hey! Hey! Hey!"

"Oh shut up Zim." Volt deadpanned, trying to figure out just where to start on the collections of cuts and bruises their saviour had. "What did this to you?"

"It-it was-" She stuttered, looking past Volt as _it_ appeared on the edge of the skylight. "It's back!"

The two male Irkens were confused until they noticed the shadow being cast by the creature that was perched overhead. They slowly turned around, but it shot into the air and was gone almost instantly. They had a brief glimpse of leathery wings, talon feet and bright red eyes. It wore an overcoat that hid most of its features...

But it still scared them to the point of nearly wetting themselves.

"...new room?" Volt squeaked.

"New room!" Zim nodded. "GIR! Activate!"

The SIR unit had deactivated itself to recharge a battery which should have lasted it another seven months instead of two hour intervals. GIR shot to life and out of the sack Zim was carrying with him. He landed, striking a pose as his eyes and chest glowed red. "Huh! Prepared to unleash doominess upon thy enemies, master!"

"Start by breaking a hole in the wall!" Zim commanded. "Get us out of here!"

"Yes my lord! Huh!" GIR's hands turned into drills which he used to break through one of the walls, the southern wall to be specific. The area outside was covered in an assortment of flora. It was like an indoor forest, or a green house let out of control. The room was perhaps five or six stories high and had a series of restaurants built along the perimeter. It must have been a public area once, available to visitors who had not returned for perhaps years.

"Let's go!" Volt picked up the injured Irken, who clung to him as he unfolded his PAK legs and jumped through the breach in the wall. He was followed closely by Zim and GIR, but all of them stumbled as their PAK legs struck the floor, which crumpled beneath their weight. Volt glanced down and saw that the area under the floor had been torn away to make tunnels. And something was looking up at him...

Something that was grinning at him with two different mouths that dripped with saliva and globules of meat.

Xxx

**Outer Irk**

**Imperial Prison**

"Oh yes yes _yes!_" Captain Wiyn, the warden of the Imperial Prison sang as she sharpened the blades of the curved blade that she had used to take the lives-and heads of hundreds of prisoners over the years. "Three executions today! I'm lucky if I get one at the most! Oh this is exciting!"

"The defectives chosen await your judgement in the court yard, Lady Wiyn." One of her Lieutenants addressed her with a bow of his head and with one hand one his chest.

"Excellent! Finally something I can look forward to!" The green eyed Irken pulled up the pink hood of her cloak and rubbed her gloved hands together. Wiyn was often known for her eager attitude, which put her in the good books of most like minded Crimson officers. Hence this was why she was doing her favourite thing: killing the scum and defectives of the Irken race to pave the way for the restoration of the True Empire under Tallest Red.

"The prisoners are...Irken Nova," The Lieutenant read the name off of a data pad he held in one hand. "In addition to the standard crime of being a defective with no loyalty chip, emotional adjustment hardware, or a link to the Crimson Network she is guilty of several dozen murders of the past 45 years."

"Hm...so young," Wiyn commented as she glanced at Nova's profile. "Barely near 150 years...best to kill them while they're young anyways." She hefted the blade. "Who are the other two?"

"Former Table Headed Service Drone Meq." The Lieutenant read off of the pad again. "He is guilty of causing injury to a superior taller officer. He's prone to rage attacks which are presumed to be the result of minor damage to the emotional adjustment hardware, and were not deemed long term hazards which could be tolerated due to the high chances of him being killed early in life."

"Yet he is almost as old as Nova," Wiyn shook her head and 'tsked'. "We should not leave anything to chance! We are constructing the perfect ruling body, the greatest that the universe shall ever behold! We cannot become lazy," She patted her executioner's blade. "And that is why Irkens such as I exist."

"...you'll like this third one then," The Lieutenant grinned mischievously.

Wiyn was lightly bouncing like a child in a candy store. "Don't keep it from me! Tell me now!"

"This one is a natural born."

Wiyn inhaled deeply and sighed in content. "Oh you just made my day, Lieutenant. A natural born here and with their head lined up for the chopping block! Oh joy!"

"His name...is Fren," The Irken showed her a picture of a young Irken male with teal eyes that made Wiyn hiss.

Any eyes which were not red, purple, green (meaning just her shade of dark green) or brown were not natural to the Irken race! They were signs of a defect. And according to the file this freak was from a Defect Smeetery where some smeets were kept alive for research purposes-mostly to help avoid the birthing of more defective smeets. He had been rescued by none other than Rikalo 'Rik' himself, and until only recently had been off the grid.

He had been part of a sabotage team sent by the Blue Empire to destroy a dry dock over Outer Irk. How convenient that once he was captured Fren had only a short ride to prison, and would have a shorter walk to Wiyn's blade. This would be a moral blow to the Blue Empire when they saw the son of one of their greatest poster boys for Defectives get his head sliced off. And the citizens of the Crimson Empire would cheer and demand more blood splatters from the corpse. Wiyn would be all too happy to oblige.

And the Blue Empire did not even know he had been captured! His team had arrived ahead of schedule, and so the executions of Meq and Nova had been moved ahead so that the public would have not only three executions to see, but the death of Fren in particular. Wiyn would enjoy this. As far as she was concerned Rikalo was one of the most disgusting insults to the true Irken Empire now. Ever since he was first a simple special operations grunt he had been causing trouble just by breathing.

Maybe he would be overcome by rage and come to avenge his son! Oh the possibilities were endless!

"Let's hurry," She insisted. "I want to see the light fade from the eyes of these defectives!"

"Ah-hem," Somebody was clearing their voice behind the two. Wiyn pouted and turned to the green clad Irken who stood by the door to the main yard. "Do you really have to keep talking about killing this much? You sound like it's giving you an orgasm."

"Aw come on," Wiyn whined. "You know what they say: if you do a job you like, you'll never work a day in your life."

"Who said that?" former Senior Communications Officer, Irken Nick said.

"Uh...not sure, probably somebody from your Tallest Shadow's empire," Wiyn waved one hand dismissively and shouldered past Nick. She didn't care much for the envoy from Tallest Shadow, who had somehow once again used his freaky powers and apparently knew ahead of time when Fren would be captured. Nick 'just happened to be in the area' when the arrest was made and was dispatched to make sure that Fren's execution was not interrupted.

He was not a fan of executions, especially glorified theater like what Fren, Nova and Meq would experience. With a heavy sigh Nick followed Wiyn to the main yard where many prisoners were lined up. On the walls were armed guards with their rifles aimed down at the crowds at all times. And camera drones floated around to give a live feed of the executions to the viewing audience of the Crimson Empire.

"Orders are orders..." Nick whispered to himself.

His eyes wandered to Wiyn's left hand...

To the Cruelty Stone which was embedded deep into her flesh and the skeleton beneath. She punched the door with that hand, and it flew open to let the sun light in, casting her as a black silhouette against the bright background for a moment as Nick's eyes adjusted to the glare of the sun.

Wiyn stepped out and was greeted by a multitude of Irken soldiers who cheered her on. The three condemned prisoners stood before her, hands bound behind them. The smallest of them stood to the left, his back permanently bowed from a life of carrying a tray on his head-the tray was now carried by a nearby guardsman. The second was struggling fiercely with her bindings and snarling at any guards that came in range. The third, the tallest of them was her primary target: Fren the Defective who should have stayed and died in the Defective Smeeteries, contributing to Irken society.

Meq, former Table Head Drone stood just under three feet, but with his back bent the way it was he was just over two feet tall. His uniform was standard, and stained by soda spills and grease spots from everything he had carried over the years. His darkly shaded pink eyes were wide with terror as his teeth chattered frantically. He had seemingly accepted that his death would come no matter what, but now that he stood before the blade of the executioner he was more frightened than ever. He inched away from his fellow prisoners as if he intended to flee, but a guard nudged him back into place-using the tray Meq had accidently injured his superior with.

Nova on the other hand was fighting to the last to get away. She was more furious than afraid of Wiyn, and she showed it by biting and kicking at the guards as they tried to drag her forward into range of the warden and the curved blade she wielded. The fact that each of her antennae looked different from one another showed that she was defective. One ended in a regular jagged curl while the other was tipped by a wavy pattern followed by a smaller jagged curl with a tiny blue dot on the very end. Her sharp claws would have cut through any rope and most of the regular cuffs, so she was given reinforced magnetic cuffs that would keep her hands and feet several inches from each other. She could not pull them apart or push them together, nor could she get her claws in a position to cut through the cuffs with.

Fren was the only one who seemed to be keeping his head in this situation-figuratively speaking of course. He actually reminded Wiyn of the images of his adoptive father, who had poisoned this Irken beyond any hope of being any good to the true Irken Empire. He stood so defiant, his teal eyes narrowed as he met her with a glare of his own. He wore the tattered remains of a military uniform with the emblem of the Blue Empire on it.

Nick stepped off to the side, and stood among the commanding officers who served as Wiyn's 'personal assistants'. He was surprised to bump into a familiar Irken with green eyes like his... "Calla?"

The Irken put one finger to his lips. "Don't let the bitch know that there's more than one of us here you moron." This was an Inquisitor of Tallest Shadow, and a powerful one at that. He had once literally regenerated the arm he had used to make the gesture of silence just now. "I was sent to make sure that nothing goes wrong."

"I'm already doing that," Nick insisted.

"No, you were sent to make sure Wiyn does her job and arranges an official ceremony instead of killing these three in private," Calla replied. "My job is to make sure that nothing goes wrong after that. You've done your part, Nick."

"What are you and Shadow hiding from me?"

"You'll find out in a minute." Calla replied. "Let's just say these three were transferred to this prison at Shadow's suggestion. Of course none of that is officially recorded and I'm not letting you quote me on that. I needed them all here so they could be picked up."

"By who?"

"Wait until the ceremony begins." Calla hissed. "Now be quiet and watch!"

Nick looked towards the three soon to be dead Defectives. If Shadow was not allied with Red, Nick would leap in to save them, and probably succeed. But he had to follow orders and tolerate Red's laws for now. Shadow would make things better once the Crimson Empire was out of the way...but first the Blue Empire had to submit so Shadow would have enough power to destroy any resistance from Red. It was no secret that the Crimson-Shadow alliance would not last...

But would it last long enough for more atrocities like this to happen?

"Here it comes," Calla murmured.

"My fellow Irkens, we stand on the ground which has drunk the blood of our own mistakes!" Wiyn shouted, causing all in the yard to fall silent. "Defectives, renegades and traitors such as these three who have failed their species as a whole stand here only to die! Now they have only one task to fulfill, something even the most defective Irken cannot fail at: entertaining you all with their deaths." She savoured the praise of the crowd surrounding the three.

Meq let out a low whine, bowing his head and trying not to cry. Nova growled softly, and glanced at her guard in a way that any Irken would look at a snack. She licked her lips, and a now pale guard tried to look away from her. Fren was maintaining his composure, but deep inside this event was getting to the young Irken. He was actually the youngest of the three, he simply had an accelerated early rate of development that allowed him to grow into adulthood by the time he was thirty rather than a hundred like most Irkens would. Despite his training, he was slowly losing his grip on his emotions.

He had only just been reunited with his father and mother, and now he had gone and gotten himself captured by the enemy to be executed? This was a circus act to them all, it was utter madness! He sucked in a breath and swallowed, keeping his head held high like his father did. Even after his forty years of absence, Rik was Fren's role model in a way. Fren carried himself like the legendary mercenary, and he wouldn't go out crying like a smeet...because Rik wouldn't have even blinked.

"Now, bring the son of Rikalo forward!" Wiyn pointed her blade right at him, and he felt the guards behind him grasp his arms. He was led forward and shoved towards Wiyn, then forced to kneel before her by his escorts.

"Irken Fren," She sneered. "Ever since you were born you have been nothing but a blight upon the perfect Irken Empire. You left your post and lived far longer than you have the right to. Every breath you take is an affront and a violation. And now I shall give you a punishment that has waited over forty years." She lifted the blade. "Do you have any final words?"

Fren was going to try and crack some wise ass remark like Rik would have, but instead his eyes widened with shock when he registered something behind Wiyn. "Yeah...don't turn around."

Wiyn actually laughed before one of her guards shouted a warning. "Captain! Look out!"

Then something grabbed her, and she was snatched off her feet with a shriek of surprise. A large winged figure had dove down faster than any creature native to Outer Irk and had plucked her out of the court yard, taking the blink of an eye to do so. Wiyn's cries faded by the time some of the guards had tried to track the winged marauder who had abducted her. Not one of them got a shot off before it was gone into the clouds.

"What the hell was that?"

"Contact the local air patrols! Tell them we have some kind of airborne hostile!"

"How did that thing manage to move so fast?"

"It took the Captain!"

Calla grinned and patted Nick's shoulder. He saw that the green eyed Irken's jaw had dropped and his eyes stared at the place Wiyn had been standing only moments ago. "For your information, _this_ is the distraction."

Xxx

Wiyn shut her eyes as the wind beat at her. Whatever had grabbed her dug its claws into her sides, holding her to its chest. She kicked and beat at it, but it did not even flinch. At first she was afraid that it would simply drop her and let gravity do its job, but it held her securely. It wore baggy clothing that covered it from head to toe except for the large bat like wings, which had a greenish membrane, sprouting from its back.

"Let me go!" She demanded, her words mostly lost to the roar of the wind. This thing was travelling as fast as any air craft! Did it have engines built into its boots or something? "I am an Irken Captain! I command you to let me go!"

"Aw...you don't want to play?" She heard its voice clearly as if it were speaking to her in a silent room. "Oh but Wiyn, you will like where I am about to take you. Trust me; you will have another chance to kill those three and many more defectives and non-Irkens. But first..." It reached up with one arm and removed the mask over its face.

Wiyn gave into fear-something she had long denied having and shrieked at the sight of the monster, the _demon_ that had grabbed her. It looked like it should have been an Irken at some point, but now it was an abomination, a disgusting monster! Its flesh was gone entirely; the whole of the head was skinned, yet somehow it lived...and it bore its teeth in a feral _grin_. Its eyes had once been blue-a disgusting and defective colour, but now they were blood shot and forced permanently open.

"Allow me to introduce myself," It said. "My name is Traitor, and I shall be your pilot today!" It cackled as it flew far from the prison Wiyn called home, ignoring her panicked shrieks.

Xxx

Back in the yard, the horde of Irken soldiers was in a full blown riot. Nobody knew what to do about this abduction, but many wanted to take their frustration out on the condemned prisoners.

"What do we do?" A lieutenant demanded.

"First get rid of the prisoners!" Another snapped. "Officers assemble inside! Sergeant, just gun them down and let's get on with this!"

"Yes sir! First Squad, line up!" A full squad of Irken soldiers stood at attention and formed a line in front of three nervous prisoners. "Ready!" They charged their rifles. "Aim!" They raised them, and Meq let out a squeak before falling over backwards. "Fire-"

THOOM! A cloud of smoke shot up into the air, blocking the prisoners from view. The soldiers all fired at once, their training telling them to shoot immediately so their targets would have no time to take advantage of the smoke screen. But the shots all rebounded and landed right back where they came from, mowing down an entire squadron in the blink of an eye.

Nick almost drew his gun, but Calla gripped his wrist. "No, stay out of this fight if you wish to live. An associate of the Shadow Empire is at work here. Do not interfere with her job, it is Tallest Shadow's will."

When the smoke cleared Nick had a view of a dome shaped energy shield protecting the prisoners. And within it stood a single Irken, the masked one who had been stalking multiple beings throughout the galaxy for the past several weeks. She was holding a cube shaped object with was glowing. It was perfectly two feet wide, long, and tall, making a cube. Perhaps it was a sort of portable shield generator...but to make a shield so powerful and large from something so small would require massive amounts of energy to sustain a defence.

"Thank you all for your attendance," She said. "Now, I'm sorry to inform you that the star attraction has been given a rather...abrupt transfer."

She was met by an array of insults, demands and shrieks. Nobody was happy to hear this news.

"I understand your concerns and take them into account," She said. "If you wish to make a complaint...then you may look to this for answers." She patted the shield generator, and set it down on the ground. "If that does not satisfy you, then I will gladly drop my trousers and allow you to kiss my ass." She bowed at the waist as she said this. "Now, I bid you a fond farewell."

"Hah! Nice try, but you're trapped!" One officer sneered. "Your precious shield's left you with nowhere to go-"

The box released a bright beam of light that shot into the sky. After several seconds all four occupants of the shield vanished.

"...you were saying, sir?" Calla asked the officer who had spoke, a satisfied grin on his face.

The energy shield was dropped, leaving the generator in place. Several guards cautiously approached it, wary of any traps...

It exploded anyways, about ten seconds after the prisoners had been either rescued or abducted. It depended on how you viewed their saviour and what she had planned for them...

Or what her master had planned for them.

Xxx

"Why help them escape?" Nick asked as he and Calla departed the prison in a shuttle. "Not that I'm complaining. But what was that about and what was it that took Wiyn?"

"You'll find out soon," Calla assured him. "We're actually going to meet Traitor now."

"Traitor?"

"Let's just say...as long as you're not his friend, you don't have to worry about his nature turning him against you." Calla opened a can of Irken Soda and took a sip. "...I swear this Crimson brand gets worse and wore every time I taste it."

"Why drink it then?"

"The same reason why despite beer tasting like shit, many individuals all over the galaxy keep downing it by the dozen," Calla replied. "This crap literally has had me addicted for the past few months. But I'm off topic here. Nick, have you heard of Factory-13?"

"Uh...oh yeah, it's a reality TV show of a tournament like Blood Sport," Nick remembered the hit series-he wasn't sure how it was doing ever since the empire fractured. "But I thought it was cancelled years ago."

"It came back several months ago and has had five seasons ever since then, one for each month." Calla explained. "And now they're going for their biggest season yet...one that Tallest Shadow has arranged to use to his advantage."

"...by putting all of his enemies in it." Nick realized. "Zim and Volt vanished...and that assassin that I know Shadow sent out after Dib, the one that got Skullene..."

"And many more," Calla nodded. "Soon I'll be heading there too. Luckily for you, Shadow doesn't think you should have to enter this tournament. He's already sent Belthiad off to join it."

"Wait...what about Traitor?"

"He's already a part of it. In fact he's been a part of it since before it was cancelled the first time." Calla chuckled. "Do you know why FACTORY-13 was so different from Blood Sport? It wasn't only your opponent or some wild animals you had to worry about...it was an army of monsters designed specifically to kill little Irkens like you and me. Now I'm an Inquisitor so you think that means that I'm the worst predator out there...the truth is that the owner of FACTORY-13 is the creator of the worst monsters you'll ever see. Traitor is just one of them."

Nick swallowed. "So this is his big game plan?"

"Oh Nicky, I thought you'd know by now," Calla said sweetly. "Shadow never has just ione plan/i."

Xxx

"Hey, wake the hell up!" Fren felt somebody kick him, and reacted immediately. He was up off of the floor and grabbed his assailant by the neck, jamming a knee into their gut. But this odd, masked alien seemed hardly affected by his assault and shoved him back. "Shit, if you didn't want to get up a simple 'go away' would'a done it, spaz."

"Who are you?" Fren looked around the featureless red room they stood in. "What is this place?"

Around the two were more shapes, prisoners like them. Meq was standing in one corner, chewing nervously on the corner of his serving tray, which had somehow accompanied him to his new prison. Nova was scratching at the door alongside another Irken, a purple eyed Irken woman who wore a matching short sleeved dress that reached her mid thigh, and knee high black boots along with matching gloves.

"Come on already!" She snapped, banging one fist on the door. "Let us out!"

"Yeah, let them out," Al grunted. "Before I kill them both and use their skin for a blanket."

"You remember the rules, ass hole!" The purple eyed Irken with long antennae glared at him. "And if you tried I'd eat your face!"

If only she knew that just seeing it would drive her insane.

"They only said not to kill or injure one another," A raspy, dry voice came from another corner. Another purple eyed woman sat there, clad in what looked like a nurse's uniform. She was also heavily scarred. "I know how to make you hurt without so much as leaving a bruise. I always liked that back in the good old days."

"Tell me again what you did to those three fools!" Of all the people to see enjoying the scarred woman's company, it was Wiyn. She looked eager too.

"Well the hospital needed the money, and when I put the offer down for those three to be put to use, the money came pouring in," The scarred woman explained. "Oh all the things I saw them do to those three girls...makes me want to laugh more!" She suddenly burst out laughing alongside Wiyn. "Oh the looks on their faces every night!"

Fren came to the conclusion that this woman was what humans called 'bat shit crazy' and that he already hated her. The last occupant in the cell was a silver eyed Irken woman sitting by the wall opposite of the only door. She was a Shadow Irken judging from her attire and the symbols on it...

"The son of Rikalo?" She suddenly asked, looking in his direction with a smile.

"Y-yeah," Fren nodded. "A son." Rik was doing his best to reunite with both pairs of children he had conceived. But Fren hardly knew his half brother and half sister at all...even less than his regular brother Ouri. Being the only adopted child in the family made it awkward.

"So Mr Capone was telling the truth I see," Sicarious nodded. "I've never met your father, but I hear that he is an amazing fighter."

"He is."

"He caused me a lot of trouble on Colossus," Al Capone said. "And he's the reason why this bitch captured me."

"So why isn't he here with us?"

"Probably because he's off the grid whenever he isn't doing the odd mission or two for money," Fren frowned. "That's traditionally the point of 'dropping off the grid': avoiding attention or threats."

"Oh don't you worry, Rikalo shall be with you along with your mother, Fren." The door had opened, and the two Irken girls trying to break it down were forced back by the barrels of several guns aimed at them by heavily armed security guards. Among them stood the Masked Irken, standing casually with her hands in her pockets. "We have many more competitors to acquire."

"Competitors for what?"

"...for the worst experience of your life." The Masked Irken drawled. "Trust me, I'd know...but it stopped making me feel so miserable after the first time. These tournaments kind of grow on you." She stepped off to the side. "You have another friend. Come on in."

Another Irken entered the room of his own free will, a cocky smirk on his face. He was red eyed, and had a metal plate of sorts over his left eye. His right arm was exposed, revealing that it was robotic and tipped with fierce claws in place of his digits. His uniform was dark, but the emblem of the Crimson Empire upon it was plain to see.

"Invader Jrek!" Wiyn sounded ecstatic. "It is a pleasure to see you here!"

"Ah, Commander Wiyn," The Irken, Jrek said. "I heard that you were not as informed of this as I was. Rest assured they didn't need that disgusting pet of theirs to bring me here. Tallests Red and Shadow have seen to it that those here under their authority are cared for."

His eyes passed over the other Irkens who were not part of the Shadow or Crimson empires. "As for the rest of you..." He smirked. "I'd say good luck, but you'll need a hell of a lot more than that if you want to last ten seconds in this tournament."

Fren swallowed. "...so if I asked if this was voluntary, would I look like a complete idiot?"

"Not entirely," Wiyn held up her left hand, and the Cruelty stone crackled with energy as she licked her lips. "I'd only kill you a lot slower."

Al Capone whispered to Fren. "For the record, that lady is way of her rocker."

Fren swallowed. "I could already see that."

"Enough playing," The Masked Irken decided. "Fren, how you answer these next few questions decide how you will be treated until you are randomly selected to be sent down. First off, where are your parents?"

"..." Fren remained silent, his hands folded behind him.

"I will ask one more time Fren, where are your parents located?" The Masked Irken asked. "I didn't have enough time to grab your dad when I met him on Colossus but I need him and your mother _now_."

"Good luck getting them," Fren replied. "If you find them at all."

"...boys, kick his ass," The Masked Irken sighed. "No broken bones or fatal injuries though. He has to fight still." She turned away as four of her men rushed into the cell...

And instead of Fren's screams of pain, she heard the agonized cries of her own soldiers. She turned in time to see one of them fly back out of the cell. Fren ducked and caught the arm of another soldier as they tried to hit the Irken with the butt of their rifle. Fren twisted and threw the soldier clear over him so they landed on their back in front of him. He had the guard's stun rifle in hand now, and he fired a single shot into the armour clad alien.

"Daaaaamn, you're not half bad, kiddo." Al nodded.

The other two soldiers advanced on Fren, who found that the rifle had shut down. He saw the Masked Irken holding a controller of sorts, perhaps the cause of his weapon shutting down. It made sense to make sure the weapons could be made useless when acquired by a prisoner.

Suddenly the closer soldier rushed in. He was the more agile of the two, showing his flexibility with a series of roundhouse, drop, and hook kicks. But despite his speed he was far too predictable, and Fren either ducked or leaned back to avoid the attacks until the soldier got a little too close. As he spun and brought his right leg up in another roundhouse kick aimed at Fren's head, the teal eyed Irken dropped and swept a foot out, knocking the soldier's feet out from under him. Fren got up as the fourth and final soldier leaped into the fray.

He threw a powerful right hook at Fren, who pushed the punch aside and danced away from the larger Irken. The soldier chased after him, but Fren immediately stopped and lunged forward, jamming his knee into the Irken's ribs. The soldier managed to turn away from the blow enough that it had little effect, and punched Fren in the face so hard that he was knocked on his back. After a moment of agony he opened his eyes and saw the rifle from earlier.

The Irken reached down to pull him up by the neck, but Fren moved onto his right side and shot both legs out. His right leg wrapped itself around the Irken's right knee, and his left leg kicked the guard right in the face. He was knocked back by the blow, and fell over when he tripped over Fren's right leg. Fren grasped the barrel of the rifle, rolled to his feet, and slammed the weapon down on the dazed Irken's head, knocking him out. Now it was just the helmet wearing guard whose species could not be identified that stood before Fren, and judging from how they shook under their armour they were scared to join their companions.

"...Change of plan, fall back." The Masked Irken said, and the soldier obeyed all too gladly while his companions were dragged from the room by other members of the security detail. "Not too bad Fren. I'm not allowed to waste time beating prisoners myself, and none of these morons here can do it, plus I'm not allowed to isolate you from the other prisoners..." She added some insult aimed at her employer under her breath along the lines of 'ridiculous commands' and 'unbelievably stupid'. "So I don't have much of a choice besides to look for your family myself now."

She placed one hand on the control panel, and the door slid shut again.

"...I hope she finds your old man," Al Capone said. "Because when I see him, I'll rip his antennae off."

Xxx

End of one very long chapter

Now, I'm worried I will get mixed up soon enough. So I have made this list of characters who shall be participating in the tournament itself once we get to that phase. A name in italics and bold means they are from the DA list.

**Rik**

**De Rien**

**Paneece**

**Tak**

**Kronos**

**Zim**

**Volt**

**Kay**

**Vesira**

**Rine**

**Calla**

**BlackJack**

**Ess**

_**Nova**_

_**Tayon 'Tay'**_

_**Wiyn**_

_**Thorn**_

_**Leka**_

_**Sicarious**_

_**Al Capone**_

_**Meq**_

_**Jrek**_

_**Geni**_

_**Katya**_

**Shadow**

**Dest**

**Hellion**

**Lania**

**Fren**

**Ruk-Nal**

**Alicia Anton**

**Skye White**

**James MacDaniel**

**There shall be even more than this, and they shall be shown later on. Feel free to register more OCs. I have 9 spaces left. A number of these are OCs you would not be familiar with, as I've never used them except for RPs.**


	5. The Mastermind, and the Investigation

FACTORY 13

Invader Zim is property of Jhonen Vasquez

Seeing as ngrey651's Frequency will be involved once more I also don't own Lilo & Stitch either

Nor do I own any of the characters, ideas and/or OCs not of my own making. And I extend my thanks to the authors who have offered their characters to assist in building this.

The current OCs from the List of Twenty on my DA account are...

_**Nova (Acquired)**_

_**Tayon 'Tay' (Acquired by secondary operative)**_

_**Wiyn (Acquired)**_

_**Thorn (Acquired by secondary operative)**_

_**Leka (Located)**_

_**Sicarious (Acquired)**_

_**Al Capone (Acquired)**_

_**Meq (Acquired)**_

_**And Jrek (Acquired)**_

_**Geni-I realized that I accidently kept calling her Devi (Located by secondary operative)**_

_**Katya (Located by secondary operative)**_

This leaves 9 more spaces for anybody interested in registering an OC of their own. Please note I will only accept 2 OCs per person-ngrey651 being an exception since five of his OCs are now involved.

Read and Review!

Xxx

**One week and several more abductions later**

_Two of light, both in dark_

_Two of sin, both broken_

_Two of a pair bears death's mark_

_Two of a pair with old lives forsaken_

_Two in one, shadow undone_

_Two in one, vengeance lifted_

_Two in one, battle won_

_Two in one, destiny shifted_

_Two in one, enemy and friend_

_Two in one, one must end_

This was the prophecy which would supposedly hold a role in how the skirmish between the Irken Empires would end, and it was burned into his head for more than one reason. One was that it also decided whether Drosco would ever see the real Lok Hunter again. Despite having only been with Lok for a few years before he vanished, and only seeing him for several minutes a year ago Drosco's whole life seemed to circle around that adorable purple eyed Irken who he had met in a club. It seemed to much simpler, when Lok would get into some shenanigans and have to blast his way out, and then he would take Drosco on a date. But now there were prophecies and entities of all sorts interfering with their lives.

And now Lok was leading one of the largest Irken factions left, perhaps the strongest of them all: the Shadow Empire. There was little to be found of the real Lok except when Drosco had confronted him. He still loved Drosco, and he still longed to find his daughter Kay, but that was it.

"That's all that's left," Drosco whispered to himself as he caressed the fabric of the brown trench coat he wore. It was one of the only things he had left of Lok, the coat he always wore in his mercenary days when they had met. He had retrieved it from where he had hidden it with any other mementos of his past relationship.

"_Drosco, are you alright?"_

Drosco tapped the communicator that hung on the side of his head, connected to his skin by an adhesive material on its surface. It was disguised as part of his outfit. "Yeah, I'm fine sweety."

"_If you're sure,"_ Kay, also known to the criminal underworld as Shade replied. _"The Irken that we managed to link to the data exchanges regarding the abductees is right inside. The tracker places him at fifty yards."_

"Thank you sweety," Drosco zipped up his trench coat-not his, Lok's trench coat. "I'll handle it from here."

Drosco had been a mechanic in those simpler times. But after Lok had vanished from the face of the galaxy Drosco had sought new sources of comfort and safety without his mate. He found it as the Grand Master of the Sheyi, an order of healers, elite pleasure drones, and spies who worked in secret for Tallest Envon. Ever since a year ago, the Sheyi had become more active in acquiring information on Shadow at Drosco's order. Envon made no attempt to argue with his friend and advisor on this.

Now he was on his seventh mission this month. He had known that dozens of abductions had taken place over the past several weeks, and many seemed to link back to the Shadow or Crimson Empire in some way. But why would they kidnap their own people? Drosco was going to find out.

The building was an upper class restaurant, owned by the Crimson Empire but with more Shadow Irken customers. It also hosted the only thing that drew in the average Crimson Irken: a fight to the death. While most Irkens sat in booths that were shut off from the violence, many would pack the main floor where a cage match would occur. As Drosco walked in he saw just one between an Irken who had volunteered, and an obviously defective Irken who had been donated to the restaurant for the fight. He had the tattoos of a Blue Irken soldier...poor soul; at least he was still fighting bravely and even winning.

But even then he would have to fight again and again day in and day out until one day he lost and was killed.

Drosco glanced away from the Blue Imperial Irken dodging a pair of knives his opponent had been allowed to keep and scanned for his target. "Sweety, please repeat the target's description."

"_Irken, red eyed, but with his right eye missing."_

That would be easy to pick out. "Thank you, Sweety." Drosco had always called Kay that ever since before she had vanished, and still called her that affectionately as though she were his own daughter. He held no blame towards her for Lok's departure into madness, and had been overjoyed to be reunited with her, once her identity was in the open and the excitement was over with.

"There he is," Drosco spotted him, leaning back with an expensive cigar-likely one of the many Terran Federation illegal items being smuggled into the Crimson Empire ever since humanity had joined the fight for Galactic Domination/Order. He was cheering on the red eyed Irken within the cage, banging one fist on the arm rest of his chair like many others were doing. "I'm moving in."

"_Good luck...maneeme," _Kay added the title with hesitation. While younger she viewed Drosco as a parent, it was awkward to call him that now. Others found it odd for her to refer to Drosco as her mother, but in the usual couples of same gender-and in a big galaxy there were many, one would be identified as the husband and the other as the wife based on who was more assertive or submissive. Drosco fit the latter role, and therefore was Kay's 'mother'.

"Don't worry sweety," Drosco said tenderly. "Maneeme has done this a thousand times."

But as he approached the rows of seats, the Irken got up to answer a call from his PAK and moved away from the aisles so he could hear it. Drosco was just ten feet away and slipping between guests when the Irken stiffened and began to look around urgently. His eyes landed on Drosco...

"...shit," Drosco brought out one of his very rare curse words. Who had warned this guy that he was coming?

The Irken took off, heading for the front entrance. Drosco let out a low growl and shoved his way out of the crowd, heading after him. They crossed the front area of the massive, open restaurant while dodging around groups and individuals. The Irken grabbed one edge of the open door frame and swung himself out and around in time to avoid Drosco tackling him. The Sheyi nimbly rolled to his feet upon landing and was running along the street after his target.

"He was warned!" Drosco hissed into his communicator. "Somebody called him and he singled me out in the crowd!"

"_Alright, sending the grab team to intercept him. Keep herding him the direction he's heading: west."_ Kay instructed.

"Sweety, I hope your boy was right about this," Drosco mumbled, but the link had already been shut down so that they could focus on capturing this Irken.

Foodcourtia had not changed much, except for the Foodening being eliminated by necessity. Now the unnatural amount of snacking would no longer take place to trap the occupants of the planet for twenty years. Thanks to it being restructured, it was easier to navigate without getting stuck in a massive crowd of fast food consumers. But now Drosco's target was taking advantage of this easily navigated area. He was running over a bridge which stood over a Sky Way.

A Sky Way is a massive road held up over immense heights by anti-gravity emitters. They connected the districts and made it easy for vehicles which could not fly to great heights to travel. Right now it was not too busy, and the Irken was willing to risk it to get away from Drosco. He vaulted over the safety rail, startling many bystanders, only for Drosco to repeated this and jump after him. They both landed with their PAK legs and were forced to dodge out of the way of a fast food transport that shot through where they had been standing a second ago.

The target reached the side walk on the opposite side of the road from Drosco, who ran parallel to his prey until they reached where the road crossed with a normal street with sidewalks. Drosco side stepped anybody who got in his way while the one eyed Irken shoved them aside brutally. For a mere information trafficker, Irken Rifen was in good shape; but Drosco had decades of Sheyi training behind him along with lessons given from Envon himself. Were Lok himself right now they would both be debating whether or not Drosco would be remaining the submissive in the relationship...

And Lok could have run Rifen down without a problem.

They were running along the same side of the road after reaching the intersection, both having taken a left; Drosco had to use his PAK legs to leap over traffic just as it was beginning to pick up again. He was catching up to Rifen, slowly but surely. The Irken led him into a transport station, meant for transferring people between districts of the city. It was largely abandoned except for a few new arrivals. Just as Rifen entered the station he snatched an energy pistol from his belt and spun.

Drosco slid to a stop and predicted that Rifen would aim for his torso, as anybody should with a hand gun. He leaned to the left just before Rifen fired off two shots, and rolled through the doors into the station as the arrivals panicked and scattered. Rifen tried to fire again, but his pistol would not shoot. He checked it and found that the rather cheap weapon's heat maintenance system had malfunctioned. The gun had overheated itself with those two shots! He only ever bought it as a precaution; he never intended to fight at all!

He swallowed and dropped the weapon as Drosco stood up. The usually gentle natured Irken's orange eyes shot holes in his one eyed target; Rifen wisely continued to flee. Drosco dashed after him and lunged as Rifen squeezed through the doors onto the automated transport tram which had been previously emptied. It was a simple box with engines on it that would carry occupants to the next designated station.

Drosco slipped through the doors and grabbed the bar that ran along the top of the transport's interior, used by passengers to hang on to in mid flight. He used it to swing his feet up and kick Rifen in the center of his chest. The Irken's chest deflated and he gasped as the breath was knocked out of him. He had also broken one rib, but Drosco would not show him any mercy until he was down. The Sheyi released the bar, and stomped the heel of his foot down on Rifen's instep as he landed.

Rifen groaned, bending the knee of the leg Drosco had landed on and reaching down out of instinct. Drosco's fist was coming up to meet him, and struck him so hard in an uppercut that it sent him flying back again, and his head left a dent in the wall.

"...target down," Drosco said after Rifen did not show any signs of rising. "He's alive, but possibly has a concussion. Please get maneeme a medical unit, sweetie."

"_They're already there. Look out the window to your right."_

Drosco did so...and saw the drop ship that he, Kay and their team had been using to travel through Foodcourtia in search of Rifen. Kay waved from the cockpit as the ship moved alongside the automated transport. _"Good job maneeme."_

Drosco couldn't help but smile. "Thanks...Dewo Smeet." (My Smeet)

Xxx

"Rifen hasn't broken yet," Envon stated, his words directed to a number of officials and military leaders gathered before him. "But Kay's tests have proven that he is hiding something in his PAK memory core. She's trying to hack it as we speak."

"I want her back here as soon as possible," The second Irken to speak was shorter than Envon-they all were, but this one was solidly built. His red eyes were wide panic, his jaw set in a frustrated growl.

"Lord Vexus, I understand your concern for Kay," Envon said. "But when you agreed to the Murderworld-Blue Irken Empire alliance, Kay offered her services to contribute to the war effort. And this could be critical information regarding the abductions that have taken place."

"I am aware of that," Vexus said patiently as one could when their mate was in great danger. "But what concerns me is that a recent message from BlackJack has indicated that Kay's quarters had been breached. Somebody took the trouble to kill several guards and smash their way through a titanium security door-which in itself should be nearly impossible, just to get to Kay. You can understand why I would feel concerned, yes?"

"I do," Envon nodded.

"The abductions have decreased in number lately, but there has been a change in the pattern." One of Blue's officers, former Invader of the Old Empire and now Captain in the Blue Empire: Dev. "Now they are taking numerous humans and other species as well."

"So now they are spreading out more?"

"Indeed, my Tallest," Dev nodded. "But I do suspect that this may be a sign that the abductions will end...which is bad, because if they do the victims will be helpless. We need to capture the kidnappers behind this before they can finish."

"How are you certain of this strain of abductions ending?"

"If I am right, then Irkens made up the bulk of their list." Dev reasoned. "So by now at least a good chunk of their list has been finished. If they are getting other species, they are 'scraping up what is left' of the talent they have had yet to acquire for whatever it is they are planning."

"But what are they planning anyways?" One Admiral demanded. "You don't go and collect dozens, or hundreds of the best fighters in the galaxy for nothing. What if the person behind this is attempting to form an army out of them?"

"Mind control would not work on the majority of them; too smart." Envon shook his head. "But then what would they want that many fighters...for..." He trailed off. "...damn, I'm such a fool."

"My Tallest?"

"If you aren't forming an army...you're looking to profit from all of those fighters," Envon stated. "And that's what this is: collection, acquisition; call it what you'd like. And I think I know what it is they're being collected for."

"What is it, my Tallest?" Dev inquired.

"...a tournament, FACTORY-13," Envon said, "Which recently received generous donations from the Crimson and Shadow Empires to fund its newest season." He recalled the few active seasons, and how popular they had been...and how a new season would be on soon. "I thought it might be harmless, maybe even draw public attention in the Crimson Empire away from the war propaganda. I thought Shadow had initiated it as a way to forced Red to divert funding with public opinion."

"Crimson Irkens want entertainment above all else," Dev admitted. "Even they get sick of war."

"Especially when they're only the fourth best as waging it," Vexus joked. "Right ahead of them is Shadow, then you...and then _me_." He pressed one thumb against his own chest. "And I'll show them just how good I am once we find all of the beings they have kidnapped. Some of them were good associates of mine who are sorely missed." Vexus growled. "And I keep my people safe from _anything_."

"And that's why I love you so much: you care so much about everybody." The voice of his mate caused Vexus to lose all of his pent up righteous fury. He was faced with a holographic projection of Kay and Vexus' new 'mother in law': Drosco Pocrule, the Sheyi Grandmaster.

"Rifen just broke," The Sheyi said. "He fought hard...but I have a personal interest in him telling us what he knows."

"And when a Sheyi wants something, they get it, no matter what." Envon smiled softly. "Good job Drosco. Tell us everything."

Xxx

_Minutes ago..._

_Rifen was sitting in a chair, his hands bound to the arm rests. He struggled against his bonds frantically, knowing that at any second his captors would return. By the time the door behind him slid open, he had made no progress with the cuffs. He swallowed and looked over his shoulder..._

"_Schloogar's?" He had a bag of fast food held in front of him, from the popular grease trap owned by Sizz-Lor. Kay had an innocent smile on her face as she set the bag on the table in front of him. She wore a version of her signature outfit from when she was a smeet: black boots, matching tights and gloves, and a pink invader style striped dress that reached her mid thigh and had sleeves. Her antennae bobbed a bit as she flashed him a warm smile..._

_In reality she wanted to rip out his other eye for how he began to drool at the sight of her. She didn't usually dress up like this, but returning to her uncle and 'mother' had caused some of her previous, cheerful self to emerge. And she had to charm this scum into talking somehow. Former Invaders Tenn and Skoodge stood by the door, on guard in case Rifen actually broke free. Despite swearing loyalty to the Holy Irken Empire, they both gladly acted as Kay's bodyguards at Vexus' request._

"_We're sorry for hurting you, Rifen." Kay said sincerely. "But when you shot at our agent, he had to react. He really only meant to talk, but he thought you would use lethal force against him."_

"_Damn right I would have," Rifen grumbled. "How can I eat without hands?"_

_Kay freed one of his hands and handed him the bag. "We just have to ask you something, and then you can go. We're not after your life, Rifen. I swear my own life on that."_

"_So what do you want to know then?" Rifen demanded. "And why couldn't you just call me up instead?"_

"_You're being bugged by Shadow Irkens," Kay lied._

_Shadow knew that Rifen was too big of a coward to betray him, so he didn't bother spying on him unless he had some vital information-and only until it was no longer relevant whether or not he told somebody. And right now Shadow didn't seem to mind Rifen walking around with information on the abductions._

"_Now we need to know about a number of abductions that you have been unintentionally assisting with," Kay said. They knew that Rifen had knowingly contacted Shadow with locations of many of the now missing aliens. But she had to make him think that he could get out of this unscathed. "Who did you send the locations to?"_

"_You don't know?" Of course she knew who he sent it to; she was Shade for a reason. "It was Tallest Shadow, my biggest customer! He always treats me right and fair when I give him legit info."_

"_All just a perfectly reasonable business transaction," Kay agreed as she sat across from Rifen, who was stuffing his face. Drosco now stood in the door with Tenn and Skoodge, arms crossed, and wearing a scowl. He did not like his daughter being in the same room as somebody like Rifen, but he had to admit eventually that Kay had crawled through the underworld just as much as he had been forced to. His little girl was all grown up now, and could handle this herself._

"_But we need to know anything you do about this deal Shadow made with you," She said smoothly._

"_I don't discuss specifics of the services I provide a client," Rifen shook his head. "I can tell you who I sent it to, and no more. And I already did, so you'll get no more out of me."_

"_Rifen, many lives could depend on you telling us," Kay insisted, trying to sound like she was pleading with him._

_He sneered. "Oh joy, so that means you'd pay a lot to get the info from me?"_

"_We're willing to offer you a lot," A quick memory adjustment followed by dumping him in an alley._

"_Hm...I'd be willing to forgo the credits for something else," He licked his lips as he examined her from head to toe...more like chest to butt. "Just a few minutes of your time is all I want. Then it's yours."_

_Before Kay could decline, Drosco stormed forward. He had lost what patience he had left now! He grasped the chair and spun it around so Rifen was facing him. The broker recognized the Irken who had beaten him, and squeaked as Drosco hauled him up by his neck._

"_Do you take us for beggars?" Drosco demanded, shaking Rifen and slamming him against a wall. "What do you think we've been doing for all these years? Do you think we're common criminals who will agree to every deal tossed at us? Look at me!" He forced a frightened Rifen to look down into his eyes. "Do you know who I am? Do you know what I've been doing for the past decades? I've been killing scum like yourself; and if you think that for one second I would hesitate to kill some parasite like you then guess again!"_

_Rifen had turned several shades paler. "I-wait I-" Drosco slammed him into the wall again._

"_Whoever hired you to send that data sent you a call on your PAK while you were out," The Sheyi stated. "He said to drop your latest information at the usual drop point at the standard time. Tell us where it is! Now!"_

"_The-they're in the Calathi District!" Rifen squeaked. "I'm supposed to drop a bunch of data cards there with the latest info they ask for!"_

"_Where and when?" Drosco demanded._

Xxx

"The apartment that Lok and I stayed in when we first went to Foodcourtia together," Drosco whispered. "It figures that Shadow would choose that place."

"He's really obsessed," Envon mumbled so Drosco would not hear, and then spoke clearly. "Drosco, intercept Rifen's contact and get them to spill anymore information they have. We must figure out where they are taking their catches, before the tournament can begin. Before it begins, the earlier competitors undergo several days of being stranded in the field before being assigned rounds. It's to weed out any weak fighters by letting the local wildlife take care of them."

"Wild life? But isn't it FACTORY-13 for a reason, my Tallest?" One officer inquired.

"You would think that," the Tallest nodded. "But this factory did more than make guns and ships...it makes _everything._ Viruses, new plant life...even cloning old species. It isn't just a factory from what I know about the schematics and history...it was a full blown military base the size of many cities. It was fully automated from the get go, and ships would be automatically shipped to known military bases so that nobody could trace where they had come from by questioning crew members. Navigation computers would be wiped clean. I tried for years to located Red Yard 13..."

"And now if I don't find it, a good deal of my friends and followers could end up dying in it." He looked to Drosco. "You have your orders."

"I'll head there immediately," Drosco nodded, and added as Kay opened her mouth. "And no Kay. You're going back to Vexus."

"Maneeme you can't treat me like-"

"I am your maneeme, young lady." Drosco frowned at her. "And I am not going to take you to speak with..._these_ types of men."

"Finally, somebody who speaks sense!" Vexus exclaimed.

Kay slumped in defeat. On one hand she was glad to go back home, but on the other she did not want to let Drosco go by himself to such a place. Most likely there would be traps there among many other things that could easily kill you if you're not careful.

"...it's for the best, love." Vexus whispered, his holographc image stroking Kay's antennae back.

"I know." She whispered. "But is it still the smart thing to do?"

Drosco left the couple alone at that point, his image vanishing as the offices gathered on Envon's end of the link spoke with one another. They intentionally ignored the emotional display of affection before them...

It reminded them all too well that they had yet to feel so much as lust for a woman, where Vexus had love.

Xxx

**Splor**

**Residential District 1**

Unlike the camp that had been invaded by Shadow Irkens days ago, RD-1 had a heavy defence of its own instead of relying on the nearby fighter squadron. This was mostly due to a limited budget though, and the soldiers all but demanded their families be given the better protection. The walls were high, and had many heavy turrets that could pick out a base ball being thrown in the dark. Every house had a tunnel that led under the complex to security bunkers in the event of an invasion.

One of the structures near the center housed officers, and had larger units for them and their families to live in. On the bottom floor, closest to the escape tunnel lived a family of three. Two of them were asleep, and the third was just returning home from the spaceport nearby.

Rikalo groaned as he slid off his jacket, he felt the joints in his shoulders aching again. "Last time I fly halfway across the galaxy again...aw who am I kidding?"

He hid his gun belt in his private vault along with the rest of his equipment, leaving him in just his pants, boots, and shirt. He slid out of the footwear and made for the bedroom, looking forward to waking up how he used to: next to his wife and with his daughter in her crib next to their bed. Lira was perhaps the quietest smeet that either of them had ever seen, and that Rik had ever fathered. In the few months since her birth she had yet to keep her parents up late into the night or into the early hours of the morning. She had De Rien's eyes, and somewhat shared her birth marks; but instead of black lines representing tear drops under her eyes, she had a pair of black crescent marks. The tips of her antennae were also crescents, but the stems hung down like De Rien's did.

Rikalo had been so focused on his wife and daughter, both sleeping on the bed together that he did not notice the intruder until his first step and a half into the room. Before his second step he had one PAK leg out and aimed at the figure which stood by the foot of the bed. "Get away from my family." He kept his voice calm, not shouting so that he wouldn't wake them up. He hoped to quietly handle this and get security to remove this intruder...

"Surely you recognize us...don't you?" It was many voices at once, speaking in High Irken. They made no real sound, but Rik heard them in his head all too clearly. "After all Rikalo...we gave you Chaos incarnate."

"...the Gate Keeper," Rik glared at the entity which had allowed him to enter the fortress on Abyss where Shadow had been holding The Caterpillar and Paneece hostage. This being had also indirectly caused the spirit of Chaos-now called Carlos to take over Rik's body and steal it from him. Sure, Carlos went and gave Rik another, perfectly new body with some powers...but of course the fact that he had yet to find out about any of these powers, and that he had been unwillingly placed in said body was insulting and humiliating.

"What do you want now?" Rikalo did not lower the PAK leg.

The Gate Keeper did not react to the contempt Rik held for it. "To warn you Rikalo. Your role has not been fulfilled yet, but the next stage of that is coming quickly."

"What role?" Rik inquired, lowering the PAK leg ever so slightly.

"You first step was to unleash chaos," The Gate Keeper explained. "The challenge that approaches you is much more simplistic...fight."

"What?"

"You must fight in order to best you next challenge...or you, your family, your people...everything and every person that you know will be destroyed." The Gate Keeper was no longer at the tip of Rik's PAK leg, but now it was leaning in towards him. Any closer and maybe he would see beneath its cowl-

"The son of Skullene is being abducted as we speak," The Gate Keeper stated abruptly, pulling back. "He is one of those who has been chosen to endure this challenge with you."

"What?" His voice made De stir.

Rine was being kidnapped? Rik did not stop to think, and just bolted out of the room to his home's built in communicator console. He dialed Rine over in the central Star Devil facility, where the Shadow Irkens had attacked. "This is Captain Rikalo, respond. We have a possible abduction in progress or about to happen. Somebody over there talk to me!"

Xxx

The communications officer who had been on the graveyard shift weakly reached for the controls to respond...and found one clawed hand hoisting her up by the head. She whimpered pitifully and shut her eyes just before the back of her head was torn out along with her brain and eyes.

Her corpse was dropped to the ground, and the creature known as Traitor looked at the globule of meat and juices in its hand. It held it over its head and tilted its skull back, opening its jaws wide. It squeezed the grey matter for all it was worth while popping the eyes into its mouth and began to chew. "Ah...much better."

He looked to his two unconscious targets, both of whom had come to investigate why the communications center had gone offline. Rine and Leka were bound together now, both sporting bruises and scratches from their brief, fierce, yet one sided encounter with Traitor. They had been brave, there was no denying that. But Traitor had dealt with much worse before either of them had even been born.

That had been when he was so much more normal...not so grotesque...

"Come along young ones," Traitor cooed as his raw, fleshless arms picked the bound Irkens up easily. "It is time to play a new game."

"Indeed," Traitor's companion licked their lips as they focused on Rine. "His mother always did have this scent about her...it is even greater on him though. I will certainly enjoy him...yes..." His lips curled back, the tissue bleeding where it was dry enough to crack and break. "He's in for one _hell of a time_ where he's going."

By the time security burst in, the portal that Traitor had formed shut behind the winged abomination and his associate.

Xxx

Rik, after receiving no response, slumped against the console. "Damn it...no..."

"Rik?" He felt a gentle hand on his shoulder, and heard the soft whine of Lira from being awoken before she was ready. He turned and met his wife's eyes.

"What is it? What's wrong?" De Rien asked, setting her free hand on the side of Rik's face and caressing him.

He sighed, leaning his head into her hand a bit. "...something terrible darlin'...something terrible."

"I can tell," De Rien nodded. "You haven't called me 'darlin'' in almost a year. The fact that you've started again means something is definitely up."

And conveniently the Gate Keeper was long gone, thus rendering him unable to answer any questions Rik's wife had.

Xxx

"Shit shit SHIT!" Rik swore hours later as he paced in Dib's office. The entire region was on alert now after the abduction of one of the chief civilian associates and the son of Mama Skulls.

Skullene was still in critical condition in the hospital, and showed little sign of recovery. But this was for the best, as the last thing she needed to know was that her only son had been kidnapped by some cannibalistic monster which made Hellion look gentle.

"This has gone on far enough," Dib stated as he stood up. "This is the second time somebody has infiltrated this world's defences; and I've lost count of how many times they have taken somebody from under our nose! This cannot go on!"

"But how can we stop them?" De Rien, changed into her grey coat and armour asked while trying to calm her husband down. "Their operatives are better trained than even a number of the Shadow Inquisitors."

"And they never leave a trace of where they are going," Dib admitted. "But we can't just sit here. Who knows who they could take next? We have to find a way to track them."

"...maybe we don't have to track them specifically," Rik realized. "But we have to track Rine."

"What? Why Rine specifically?"

"Because his overly protective mother put a tracking chip in his PAK, that's why!" Rik replied. "I need to see Skullene's PAK. She'd have the transmitter for Rine's chip, and that's the only place she would dare hide it!"

"I'll have somebody take a look at her PAK once we can risk fiddling with it," Dib nodded. "Rik, I'm moving your family to this area. And I mean your whole family: Fren, Ouri, Lania, and Rimak...after they're accounted for that is."

"They aren't?" One of Rik's eyes twitched dangerously.

"Not yet," Dib replied calmly. "And until they are here, I'll need your help to get started on preparing for when we finally chase those bastards down."

"...you're talking my language," Rik smirked. "I'll get a squad ready, and reserve one of our strike ships. That'll be fast enough to get us anywhere."

"Do it," Dib nodded. "And make it quick Rik. I'm in charge here and forbid anybody, especially Leka and Rine to die as prisoners to that thing that broke in."

"And I'm gonna forbid that thing from dying by any means except by my hand," Rik nodded his affirmation.

De took his hand. "We'll both track it down...I think we might need the numbers."

But before the meeting could carry any further, Dib received the hundredth call that day from Envon. The Tallest's ID Code flashed n a screen built into Dib's desk. "Envon again," he answered, and an image of the Tallest was displayed. "We can hear you Envon, go right ahead."

"R-Rik? De?" The Tallest looked nervous. "Damn...I was hoping you wouldn't be here for this?"

"More bad news?" Rik asked.

"Sadly, yes." Envon nodded. "I guess there's no use in hoping to hide it. You'd have found out eventually..."

"Envon, please just tell us," Dib requested. "We've had enough incidents today and I doubt anything else could possibly make this work."

"...I just got the report on what took Rine and Leka..." Envon sighed. "...Just yesterday, it interrupted an execution that a team of mine had been planning to crash. It was accompanying the Masked Irken from before. They kidnapped the warden who was in charge of the prison where the execution was to take place...along with all three of the prisoners."

"Do we know any of them?" De inquired, her hand squeezing Rik's nervously.

"...one of them was Fren," Envon whispered.

Xxx

Geni Usingo was never surprised anymore. Perhaps it was the security; or maybe it was her intuition, but nothing ever fazed her now. She was young by Irken standards, but had been wise beyond her years when she was a mere smeet. That wisdom had turned into cunning, malice...and most would say arrogance. People often thought she was trying to fill shoes that were too big for her, right up until she showed them just how powerful she really was.

That was how she had gotten this far; never holding back for anything. She winced, remembering a kind face, a warm voice, and a hand outstretched towards her. She almost reached out towards thin air, but then shook her head and went back to her latest project. "Damn it, I can't afford to get distracted."

"_Proximity alert by west gate._"

Well, so much for not getting distracted.

"Thank you, Kevin." She muttered, still attempting to be focused upon a half assembled rifle on the table before her. She slowly slid off the goggles she had been wearing and unbuttoned the white lab coat which she wore over a black robe. The robe hid a small arsenal and some personal body armour; a girl had to be careful in this day and age even with the ever so righteous Blue Empire about to go on the move.

War was war, and she profited no matter who won. The Blue Empire, the Red Empire, and to a lesser extent the Shadow Empire purchased her goods. And if any got their hands on her, they would punish her all the same. But that meant that they had to know where to find her first; and if they couldn't find her when she was ten, they couldn't find her when she was a full grown Irken adult! But despite her best efforts, somebody had found her today.

Safety was an illusion. She shouldn't have believed for a moment that this would be permanently hidden from all of her enemies. But which one had found her now? Was it arrogant Tallest Red? Macho Tallest Shadow? Or was it the eager young Tallest Blue, the Hero of the Defectives?

Or maybe one of the other minor Tallests who wanted to try and get her to sell exclusively to them? She would find out soon, wouldn't she?

"Kevin," Geni picked up a jar of pills from the table and slid it into a compartment in her PAK. "Lock down this part of the lab for me. I have work that I have to handle." She collected a series of knives and other small weapons from a table nearby, slipping them into the appropriate holster, sheath, or pocket.

"_Shutting down all projects, going into standby mode._"

Good, now nothing could get at her projects. And even if she took hours, days, or even weeks away from there, they would continue on their own. Nobody would put their filthy hands all over her inventions. And that was how Geni liked it: absolute quiet without any stupid smeets, idiots, or 'heath care workers' who do their own part for a community, true or false. Now that solitude was reached by the General, causing negotiations to fail entirely.

Geni stepped out of the lab, which was locked behind her after the door closed. "I just can't have any peace and quiet." Her grey eyes slowly began to become a darker shade until they were pitch black. "Not one god damn day to myself anymore..."

She stepped into an elevator which began to take her back down to the ground floor. The structure where she made her products was split into five levels; three above ground, and two below. The defences made approach by air nearly impossible without plenty of support to eliminate the anti air turrets, the automated Interceptor III attack drones patrolling the skies overhead, and the ground based mine launchers. The last option shot a single canister into the air which would release over a hundred small explosives equipped with anti gravity generators powerful enough to shift them a bit, and then let them hold position against any wind forces. The cannons were appropriately positioned so that these launched mines could set up a stable barrier between any landing craft and the ground; the best part being that the mines were too small to be targetted or detected-no more than a bird could be.

Somebody was smart enough to approach by ground. She did not set up any ground defences except for automated turrets on the four gates to the complex. Once inside they would have a lot more opposition, but if they were able to get inside then they wouldn't be brought down by a few fancy traps.

As the change in eye colour finished, right as the elevator reached the ground floor, she growled and started for the west gate. "_Somebody's gonna die!_"

Xxx

Next time, watch Geni Usingo in action!

Now, I'm worried I will get mixed up soon enough. So I have made this list of characters who shall be participating in the tournament itself once we get to that phase. An italicized name means they are from the DA list.

**Rik**

**De Rien**

**Fren**

**Paneece**

**Tak**

**Kronos**

**Zim**

**Volt**

**Kay**

**Vesira**

**Rine**

**Calla**

**BlackJack**

**Ess**

_**Nova**_

_**Tayon 'Tay'**_

_**Wiyn**_

_**Thorn**_

_**Leka**_

_**Sicarious**_

_**Al Capone**_

_**Meq**_

_**Jrek**_

_**Geni**_

_**Katya**_

**Shadow**

**Dest**

**Hellion**

**Lania**

**Ruk-Nal**

**Alicia Anton**

**Skye White**

**James MacDaniel**

**There shall be even more than this, and they shall be shown later on. Feel free to register more OCs. I have 9 spaces left. A number of these are OCs you would not be familiar with, as I've never used them except for RPs.**


	6. The Final Collection

FACTORY 13

Invader Zim is property of Jhonen Vasquez

Seeing as ngrey651's Frequency will be involved once more I also don't own Lilo & Stitch either

Nor do I own any of the characters, ideas and/or OCs not of my own making. And I extend my thanks to the authors who have offered their characters to assist in building this.

The current OCs from the List of Twenty on my DA account are...

_**Nova (Acquired)**_

_**Tayon 'Tay' (Acquired by secondary operative)**_

_**Wiyn (Acquired)**_

_**Thorn (Acquired by secondary operative)**_

_**Leka (Acquired)**_

_**Sicarious (Acquired)**_

_**Al Capone (Acquired)**_

_**Meq (Acquired)**_

_**And Jrek (Acquired)**_

_**Geni-I realized that I accidently kept calling her Devi (Located by secondary operative)**_

_**Katya (Located by secondary operative)**_

Xxx

Geni had half expected an army, or perhaps at least a squadron of commandos. But instead there was a single Irken standing at the now open gate. He was tall, and _very _thin, so much that she could almost see his rib cage through the long tattered coat that he wore. In one hand, which should have been too large for his body, was the remains of one of Geni's defensive drones. "Is this yours?"

The hood and black visor that the Irken wore both blocked his face from view and filtered his voice until it could not be recognized. Did that mean that she knew this Irken? Or was he just trying to be mysterious so he looked cooler?

Because if it was the latter: it would have worked with anybody besides Geni.

"Yes, actually it is." She nodded. "Might I ask why you had the urge to go and break it and most of my defences over on this side of the complex?"

"Why, that's simple!" The Irken nodded. "...they started it."

It was a childish excuse, so simple that only the fact that Geni knew it was deliberately made to sound thus kept her from laughing. This intruder obviously did not care much for the rumors about her that flew around. Geni Usingo: the greatest criminal gun producer in the galaxy, one of the few to fight off Tallest Shadow's stronger Inquisitors and live to tell about it...then again more stories were about the newly revealed Tallest Envon and his side kick: Rikalo 'Rik'. Maybe her reputation was in need of some bolstering-

"Oh trust me it isn't," The intruder interjected. "But those Inquisitors you killed were minors who had been sent after you as a last chance to make up for an earlier failure. It was a choice between you or being banished for a decade...they all thought you were the easier choice."

Geni was on guard immediately. Few Irken Psychics were allowed to leave their home worlds, so this one was more than likely another Inquisitor!

"Right on the spot," The Irken nodded. "But my career isn't the issue here, Chief. What we need to talk about is an offer being made by my Tallest Shadow which you might find interesting."

But Geni was still analyzing him for weaknesses. Obviously he didn't have much body fat or muscle mass, so perhaps even with whatever augmentations Shadow had provided his long bones would break more easily. But no Inquisitor was totally defenceless-

"Quite true! And I can't help being skinny! Seriously, why half the women I know want to be like this I will never know."

Geni quickly began to remind herself of the training she had taken to counter the mind reading abilities of these pests. Focus on an object or a feature of your opponent, project that from your mind, mask what you are thinking...

"Well I think it's starting to work if that makes you feel better. You're coming out all muffled now."

She opened her black eyes. "You're annoying."

"I'm told that I'm quite good at that too," The Inquisitor tapped his visor, and the lower half parted to show his mouth. He held up a small fruit...

"So you helped yourself to _my_ food supply?" Black-Geni demanded. "I've killed for less you-"

"You let your mind barrier drop," The Inquisitor informed her, his voice no longer filtered. But it sounded familiar... "And if you imply that about my mother out loud I'll rip out your tongue. Now we're wasting time here." He took a bite of the fruit, allowing her to see that his teeth were already stained...the color of Irken blood. "I was sent here to extend an invitation to you."

"Forgive me if I give a pre-emptive _drop dead_!" All four of Black-Geni's PAK legs shot out. All four were modified with different tips which could extend ahead of the basic spike points on each leg. The upper two had extensions which could be used to snip wires or even be jabbed into soft tissues and materials. The lower two had blow torches which she had also adapted for use as flame throwers when the situation required it. She had a small fuel supply in her PAK to fuel the flame throwers, good for a 60 second burst from each.

She activated the flame throwers, and shot twin streams of fire at the Inquisitor. He dodged to the left, throwing his hooded coat off and into the air when part of the hem caught fire. Oddly it didn't go up in flames as quickly as Black-Geni thought it would, but then she realized after a split second that the Inquisitor had balled it up and thrown it at her! She intercepted it by impaling it on one of her upper PAK legs and tossing it aside. She tried to follow the Inquisitor's movement, but he was fast.

_Damn it Black did you have to start shooting for no reason? _Grey-Geni demanded.

"Stay out of this one Grey!" Black-Geni snapped before leaping up and digging her upper PAK legs into a cat walk which travelled along the whole first floor, allowing her a bird's eye view of the maze of supply crates and vehicles. She saw the Inquisitor leap on top of on such pile, which was supposed to hold Security Mechs which she had yet to sell to the Vortian Federation...

Black-Geni was not the one who made the deal though, nor did she create the mechs. It was all Grey, the de facto leader of the different Genis. Black-Geni didn't give a damn whether she smashed or melted them. She reached into her PAK and produced a single spherical grenade. She pressed her thumb down and pushed a tab along a slot until it reached the end. The grenade let out a chime to let her know that it was armed, and she lobbed it with precision towards the Inquisitor. The accuracy of a few Irken athletes and soldiers who were good at throwing made the shot precise.

The grenade hit the crate which the Inquisitor stood on, but before it had even landed he had jumped off and climbed onto the cat walk. The crates and their contents were incinerated when the grenade caused the unshielded power supplies of the inactive droids to become compromised and detonate. Black-Geni tuned out Grey scolding her, and dashed along the cat walk towards the Inquisitor. He wore no shirt under the coat, only a grey cloth that was tied around his upper body in a way that it looked like a shirt. His limbs were as thin as she thought they were, and she could see his rib cage. Perhaps being an Inquisitor had made him think that he was exempt from the need for sustenance now.

She sliced her upper right PAK leg at the Inquisitor, and as he leaned back so that he avoided its razor edge she fired her lower left leg's flame thrower. But he back flipped out of the way, as Black-Geni had been forced to fire her PAK leg at him from the side, otherwise she'd be extending it past him and would be leaving one of her weapons in the open, practically with a sign saying 'snap me in half!' written on it attached to the leg. But now he was at the perfect range, so her right lower PAK leg's flame thrower was aiming straight at him now.

He dropped and rolled, dropping off the side of the cat walk as she fired. He twisted each time he moved along the side of the cat walk, turning 180 degrees clockwise whenever he swung out his left or right arm to swing himself in Black-Geni's direction along the edge of the catwalk. He was next to her in two seconds, but made no move to grasp Black-Geni's PAK legs. "Are you done now, Lady Usingo?"

Black-Geni growled and leaped off of the cat walk. This bastard was playing with her!

_Perhaps because you make it too easy for him to do so._ Grey groaned in dismay. _You handle lower class Inquisitors, remember? I take the professional ones._

"Look, seriously, I'm just here to-" The Inquisitor was cut off when Black-Geni suddenly shot two more grenades up, setting them to detonate upon impact. One struck the cat walk a few feet to his right, and the other a few feet to his left. He was battered with shards of metal, one of which dug into his visor. The rest stuck out of his arms and torso as his section of the cat walk collapsed. He flipped over in mid air and landed on the ground, black fluid flowing from his wounds.

"...alright, I'm nearly out of patience," He sighed before producing another of Geni's supplied fruits from his PAK. He took a bite out of it. "You know if you keep this up I'll just have to knock you out and drag you in, right?"

However his words went unheard, as Black-Geni's eyes were fading to grey now. Grey-Geni shook her head and retracted her PAK legs. "Don't bother...unlike my compatriot, I'm willing to hear you out...if not for a minute if you're not here to kill me."

"Oh, joy!" The Inquisitor grinned. "In that case I'll just get rid of these then." His muscles bulged, suddenly making him to be not as less thin and more like a normal sized Irken. His body structure still marked him as an ectomorph for his linear build, lacking much muscle and fat. Suddenly the metal shards which had dug into him all shot out of him as though fired from guns. Geni ducked as several flew by her, having another grenade in hand and ready to throw before she realized that the Inquisitor meant her no harm. He was collecting the charred coat and putting it back on despite the damage to the hem.

Finally, he plucked the single piece of metal from his visor and flicked it away. "Good...now we can begin."

He bowed his head. "I have come at the command of Tallest Shadow to offer you a position in a tournament of great importance, Lady Usingo."

"Go on," Geni nodded, sitting on a crate and crossing her arms and then one leg over the other.

"The prize shall be anything the victor wishes for, supposing it is possible to be obtained." The Inquisitor continued.

"And just how do I know this will be worth my time then?" Geni demanded.

"...the ones who must fulfill the victor's wish are the Crimson and Shadow empires, Lady Usingo." The Inquisitor informed her.

That was actually surprising. The relationship between Red and Shadow was more out of convenience, and only authorized them to hunt within one another's territories or allow their ships to flee to the other Tallest's worlds...mostly Red did the hunting and the fleeing though. Shadow was the only tallest besides Envon not to publically address Geni as a threat to their empire. This was due to the Blue Empire wisely not screwing around with her, and...Shadow just never addressed criminal issues, he only appeared for battles or for trials.

And from what she could see, he was smarter than the average Tallest...or average Irken actually. She still did not consider him worth assassinating to get her business expanded despite the Inquisitors he sent after her, but the Tallest himself was different from these expendable wimps.

"...what is this tournament?" She inquired, pondering the idea of joining.

"FACTORY-13, Lady Usingo," The Inquisitor looked up. "I too shall be competing on my master's orders."

"Interesting, yes," Geni ignored him and turned away. "Hm...anything...usually in FACTORY-13 they just let the victor live long enough for the next season."

"Things have changed," The Inquisitor informed her. "And when Tallest Shadow demands change, it is quite often done without question."

This intrigued Geni to some extent. A true possibility...and Shadow was not one to lie. He was anything but that, actually. He had made it very clear that he would not buy from her in a million years, but would not warn Tallest Red that she sabotaged a good deal of her recent shipments to him.

"...very well." She said. "...it's a deal. Take me to your precious Tournament."

Xxx

**Settlement A1**

The addition of Paneece as part of everyday life in Settlement A1 had been unsettling at first, mostly because of the attachment that had formed between her and The Caterpillar during their time away. If it bothered The Monarch at all that her husband had eyes for two women at once-or would if his eyes could see, then she did not show it. Paneece at first was just there to give birth to her smeet. It came out as a beautiful white eyed boy, whom they named Ediss. After that most had thought she would leave as soon as possible to go back home, but instead she ended up moving into the room she had at first been held captive in when she had been abducted by The Caterpillar.

She was primarily in charge of caring for Ediss, who was so attached to his mother that so much as being taken to the next room set him off. So she would test him by slowly moving further and further off and getting him more used to other people while staying close by. This allowed The Monarch and The Caterpillar to have time with the smeet. Though she was not the biological mother, The Monarch simply adored Ediss, but did not try to replace Panny as his mother. She understood how it was to lose children, and did not want to bring that on Paneece.

The presence of Blue Imperial Irkens made the denizens of the Holy Irken Empire forget about Paneece for the most part. Envon had assigned a small fleet and army to guard the orbit and surface over where Settlement A1 was hidden. Sometimes the soldiers would come down into the settlement and interact with their neighbors from another universe. For the most part these meetings were uneventful but pleasant.

But for Paneece it mean she had more people to stare at her whenever she left the fortress to go down into the villages. The HIE Irkens still celebrated the first natural birth in their civilization's brief history in this universe; and the BIE Irkens were getting used to the first perfect birth without any physical defects to come from one of their own. Of course this would fade in the coming years as future pod born Irkens would be modified to retain fertility-an effort which would perhaps yield nothing until Ediss was grown up and had kids of his own.

Nevertheless, Paneece had never been one to bow to pressure from anything. So she walked with her head held high...and Ediss nibbling on one of her hands while he sat in a harness on Paneece's front. She had just stepped out of a store that sold the formula he liked, and as usual he was already bored and wanted to go back to the Caterpillar's fortress to play-hence the nibbling. Her gloves would have a hole in them at this rate.

"Gods, I'd actually give for something to happen if it means I'd have a reason to not carry you around all day," she sighed. "I love you Ediss, but I don't want to go clothes shopping for gloves." She was now on her way back to the fortress.

"Panny!" She heard the distant call, and felt a smile form against her will as she looked to the source. It was him, The Caterpillar, waving to her from his favourite cafe in the village. The Monarch, otherwise known as Alternate-Tak or Tak-2 was with him. The white robed Irken glanced up to see what her husband was doing, and smiled softly as she saw Paneece and her son. Somehow Paneece couldn't help but feel that The Monarch was trying to be nice to her despite perhaps not liking her too much...mostly due to her husband's obvious attachment.

She walked over. "Hey Darth," she had taken to calling The Caterpillar by his birth name, something he had grown used to after a while.

"Doneeme!" Ediss squeaked, recognizing his father.

"Hello there Ediss!" The Caterpillar brought his flexible body down as far as he could go so he was level with his son and kissed his head. "Have you been good for maneeme?"

"Mh-hm!" Ediss nodded.

'_My son is a natural liar._' Paneece thought immediately as The Caterpillar tickled Ediss. '_Dear god he's inherited too much from me._'

"I'm just taking him back up to the castle," Paneece said. "I have everything that I need now."

"We'll be along in a while," The Caterpillar nodded. "Would you like anything?"

"No thanks," Paneece replied. "I'm not in the mood to be kept up all night by another drink from here." She rubbed her son's head. "Ediss already does enough of that for me."

"Alright," The Caterpillar straightened up. "We'll be having another game if you're interested though."

Once in a while, to improve morale and give a sense of 'business as usual' the Caterpillar would organize events in every village within Settlement A1. After years of this, all two hundred eighty eight thousand or so of the inhabitants of Settlement A1-and the entirety of the HIE considered the 'games' a quarterly-sometimes bimonthly tradition.

"I'd like that," Paneece got up onto the toes of her boots and planted a chaste kiss on the Caterpillar's cheek. "I'll see you all back at the palace!" With that she walked off, only just realizing that she had once again kissed the Caterpillar in front of his wife. She did not want to test the Monarch's patience; she still had a hint of Tak's rage within her as far as Paneece was aware.

However, The Monarch did not hate Panny at all for what she had just done. She was glad that her husband finally had an heir, a little prince to the empire, and had found another woman who could provide that-and that woman now was returning the feelings that Darithil had for her. But The Monarch was also relieved that he was not vain enough to cast her aside for Paneece. He still loved her, and she loved him as much as the day they had met; nothing would change that any time soon. If Paneece really did end up becoming part of the family...let's just say she'd draw the line at her husband having a second wife.

And only because this theoretical second wife was Paneece.

Xxx

Paneece left the village behind her and made for the castle. Ediss was no doubt excited to return to his mother's quarters so he could play with some new toys that Envon had sent to him. Maybe one day when he was older he'd realize how much a toy given to you by a Tallest could sell for...after all, he had a bit of his mother in him, and deep down she was a businesswoman. She merely placed business beneath family and the impending war.

"Manny!" Ediss suddenly tugged on Paneece's shirt collar. "Manny!"

"Yes, sweety?" Paneece looked down at her son affectionately. He was pointing at something...

"Bad!" He squeaked. "Bad!"

"What?" Paneece began to turn, only to feel a blade press against her throat. Her whole body stiffened as she felt a form pull her tight against its front.

"Good day, Lady Paneece."

She let out a gasp, only for the blade to move down to Ediss' neck. The smeet whimpered, shutting his eyes and scrambling to move deeper into Paneece's protective embrace.

"Don't make a sound," The speaker hissed. "You will follow me to the forest if you value the life of your child."

Paneece swallowed a scream, and nodded. As the invisible figure led her towards her woods, she tried not to let tears escape her eyes at the thought of what would happen to her or her son. In the back of her mind she tried to send out a warning in the hopes that the Caterpillar was listening.

_Help! Help! Caterpillar! Darithil! Forest! Help us!_

Meanwhile, the Caterpillar was actually out at the moment looking for an anniversary gift, rubbing his chin thoughtfully as he looked over his list of possible gift ideas, Skoodge sitting nearby and playing a game of Checkers with the Monarch as she looked in the Caterpillar's direction.

"It has to be something special." The Caterpillar insisted.

"Chocolates?" Skoodge suggested.

"With rich, cliche centers?" The Monarch said, rolling her eyes as she pushed a checker forward, checking Skoodge as he frowned.

"Flowers?"

"Done to death."

"I've GOT it!" The Caterpillar remarked, snapping his "fingers". "I'll buy her a really nice...pen. It's perfect. She always writes to people the old-fashioned way, she feels email is to impersonal!"

"...pen is good." The Monarch decided, the Caterpillar stiffening as he felt Panny's frightened thoughts ripping into his head, a cold icicle stabbing through his mind, laced with forboding despair and sheer terror and fear for her and her child.

_'Caterpillar, trouble, forest, help!'_

"What's wrong?" Skoodge asked, waving a hand in front of The Caterpillar's face. Suddenly the leader of the HIE shot out of the store, heading for the forest. As he went he pulled out the communicator given to him months ago just for a situation like this...

"Commander this is The Caterpillar! We have a situation down here in the settlement, I need you to send a squadron down!" He shouted.

"I'm on it." At least this commander didn't wait to ask questions. When there was a problem and The Caterpillar said he needed soldiers, he'd get the soldiers without any questions asked. But would they be here in time.

Xxx

"Good girl," Paneece's captor said as she shoved Paneece once they were far enough from anybody else. "Now set the smeet down. He's not the one I'm after, just you. And killing him would...leave you in less than perfect condition."

"What do you want?" Paneece demanded while trying to calm her son.

"That's simple enough." Vesira said. "You. I'm going to make you an offer you can't refuse."

"You're out of your mind."

"We're all a LITTLE insane!" Vesira chuckled. "But if you're so eager to die here instead of in the tournament, I admit that insulting somebody with a knife to your throat is a sufficiently fast method of doing so-"

"Tournament?"

The Masked Irken inwardly cursed. "_Vrik na tishanti! _Ah well." She muttered. "You're going to HELP me, Ms. Paneece." She told her while lowering herself towards the frightened mother and reached out for the wailing smeet in Paneece's arms. "First thing's first, let's-"

She was cut of by Paneece snapping one leg up and kicking her right in the face. She was so caught off guard that she stumbled back and tripped over, giving Paneece time to get up and start running; a number of hairline cracks on her visor sent a pang of irritation through Vesira as she slowly got up. "...I hate it when they run."

Paneece was moving as fast as she could, intent on returning to the settlement for help. She knew that her head start would be brief, as her abductor was clearly faster than her. She had to stall for time and pray that the Caterpillar would notice her gone soon. When a dart shot past her head, she yelped and quickly ducked into the trees, hiding behind one and holding Ediss close as she placed a hand over his mouth to stop him from screaming and giving her away.

The Masked Irken landed several feet away, having been following her from the branches above. She holstered the dart gun she had just fired and replaced it with a knife possessing two blades parallel to one another. "You really like to make this hard, don't you?"

"Don't think I intend to follow your schedule." Panny hissed out, her mind racing. She carefully held up a small knife she had kept hidden, strapped to her waist for self-protective purposes, looking into it and turning it slightly so as to look behind her, just around the tree. Sure enough, she could see the Masked Irken looking around, sneakily creeping over to a tree not too far from her.

"One way or another, you're coming with me." The Masked Irken called out. "Now you can come quietly, or you can come with your little brat's head tied around your-"

The knife shot through the air and struck the Irken squarely on the temple, said mask flying away as she was sent spiralling back. She let out a furious glare at Panny, who looked the now-revealed Irken squarely in the face. This being...every single inch of her face spoke of a hard, cold life. There was no trace of warmth or kindness to be found, nothing but a dark, almost predatory light burning within those eyes as the irken female stood up.

"You...saw...my...face..." She murmured darkly. "NOBODY sees my face-"

"And now I see your mind." A voice rang out, a telekinetic blast launching her into a nearby tree as the Caterpillar, eyes ablaze with intense fury, held up a clenched fist, tightening it further as the irken was whipped around to face them. The ruler of the HIE was slithering out from between the trees, his antennae flattened to his head and one hand outstretched.

"Paneece...meet Vesira. And I am Darithil, the Caterpillar ad ruler of the Holy Irken Empire. Don't worry, you'll have plenty of time to get acquainted with us...when we come visit you in the dungeon you shall be spending the remainder of your lonely, sad existence-."

The Caterpillar stopped as he felt a sudden blast of mental power from his prisoner. It was enough to make him groan in pain and lose focus enough for Vesira to reach for her belt and activate the Disruptor located there. She dropped to her feet, coughing a bit, and then slowly got up.

"Not...likely..." Vesira chuckled despite the blood that flowed out from her mouth now. "Take a good look at me...ass hole."

Paneece examined Vesira, and saw the slant of her red eyes, her antennae which sloped down into lazy scythe tips, the darker than normal green skin...

"_Skully_?" Paneece whispered before Vesira dove forward, snatching up her mask and placing it back on before leaping over the Caterpllar's tail when he swung it at her in a sweeping motion. She kicked him in the face with a drop kick, and sent him off balance. Paneece retrieved her knife and then hid Ediss in some bushes.

"Stay here and be quiet sweety," She whispered, kissing his forehead. "And be safe."

She rushed off to help the Caterpillar, trying to block out the distressed whine of her son as he flailed his hands desperately. He tried to crawl after her, but to no avail. "M-Manny!" He bawled. "Manny..."

The fight was not going well for the Caterpillar. He swung his tail like a whip, but Vesira seemed to be untouchable. She used a pair of knives to deliver multiple slash and stab wounds to him every time he got close, making them superficial but painful.

"Stay...away from her!" He panted, trying to call on his psychokinetic powers again. But Vesira's disruptor was still active and disabling them.

"Sorry, no can do!" She chuckled before vaulting over his tail as it swung by and then ducking out of range of his claws. "But I'll tell you what I can do, slice a nice big smile in your son's face from antennae to-" This enraged the Caterpillar into diving right at her, catching the Masked Irken off guard. The length of his body wrapped around her and began to constrict in a death grip. She was unable to gain any leverage to escape, she might as well have tried fighting a cement mould set around her to dry for several hours.

"You will never touch my family **again!**" The Caterpillar hissed as his monocles fell aside to show the two abysses within, crawling with spiders and threads as he reared back one arm to claw Vesira's head off with one stroke.

But the red eyed Irken was not out yet. She tapped her heels together, and a short blade sprang from the tip of one boot, which she then jammed into the Caterpillar's flank. He stiffened and cried out as she activated a second function by tapping the back of her boot's heel with the toe of the other...and sent a jolt of electricity through the Caterpillar. Her coat and gloves kept her safe from the current until the Caterpillar finally dropped her.

She reached into her boot and produced a pill which she tossed at the Caterpillar. It burst into a large form and pinned him to a tree as a net where it electrocuted him. He cried out in absolute agony as Panny returned to assist him. She saw her mate's distress and let out a horrified cry.

"NO! Stop it Skully!" The words left her mouth before she even thought about them, and the electrocution ceased. The Caterpillar fell unconscious.

Vesira slowly turned to pin Paneece with her glare. Her lips were drawn back and her teeth bared in a snarl as she shook with pure hatred for the frightened Irken before her. "My name...is not...Skully."

Paneece's legs felt weak as Vesira advanced on her. "And if you **ever** compare me to that bitchy soccer mom ever again..." She smirked and withdrew a blaster, which she aimed at the Caterpillar's limp form. "I'll do a lot worse to your boy friend."

"N-no! Wait!" Paneece dropped her knife and held her hands up. "I'll go with you! I'll go! Just please, don't hurt him!"

"Perfect..." Vesira turned the gun on Panny, startling her.

"B-but I thought you-"

"It's just a stun gun, honey." Vesira teased before shooting Panny in the shoulder. She gasped, and fell at Vesira's feet. The red eyed Skullene look-alike scooped her up under one arm as the Caterpillar stirred.

"No...P-Panny..." He groaned.

"Good luck next time, lover boy." Vesira spat on him as she walked past and tapped her armored glove to form a portal...and was gone with his mate.

"No! **NO!**" The Caterpillar tore out of the net and threw himself at the portal, but it shut when he was mere inches away from it. He hit the ground, weeping bitterly for the loss of Paneece. Only the sounds of a tiny form crawling towards him brought him out of his misery. He looked up to see Ediss stumbling towards him...slowly getting on his feet.

The Caterpillar was not sure whether to consider it a small blessing, or the cherry on top of the cake of misery: Paneece had missed her smeet's first steps.

Xxx

"I've got her...and Katya came willingly enough." Vesira leaned back in her chair. "If you verbally abuse a girl long enough, not even a gilded cage will keep her from leaving you." She winced at a harsh response from her employer. "...I'll be there at the scheduled time...alright. Yes...my master."

The call ended, and Vesira growled. "Once I'm out of your control..." She let the threat hang as she took the controls and plotted a course for what would be her new home until she thought of a fool proof escape plan.

But now...all of the players were collected.

Now it was time to make an announcement.

Xxx

The next chapter will be short.

Oh and I will be adding tons of randomly made OCs, and I won't be able to include every single fight in the tournament. I will only show significant ones, so I am sorry if one of your OCs does not appear in this. I will try to make sure that every OC from the List of 20 makes an appearance at the very least.


	7. Closed! Wait for Remake

FACTORY 13

Invader Zim is property of Jhonen Vasquez

Xxx

I'm sorry, but I feel like I'm about to fall to a stand still in this story. I don't want to abandon it but between writer's block and trying to fit in so many characters at once I think that I should redesign this story a bit.

I'll still involve every OC who was registered, but I'm going to go about it a different way.

This story shall now be closed, and a remake shall be in the process immediately. I apologize to anybody who felt that this was going somewhere.

Xxx

End


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